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THE WORKS OF 
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 

Uniform Edition. 12mo, Gilt Tops 

History of England, from the fall of Wolsey 
to the Death of Elizabeth. Twelve 
volumes. Per vol $1.50 

The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth 

Century. Three volumes. Per vol. . 1.50 

Short Studies on Great Subjects. Four vol- 
umes. Per vol 1.50 

Caesar. A Sketch 1.50 

Thomas Carlyle. Four volumes. Per vol. . 1.25 

Jane Welsh Carlyle. Two volumes. " . 1.25 

Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle. . . .1.50 

Oceana. England and Her Colonies. Illus- 
trated 1.50 

The English in the West Indies. Illustrated. 1.50 

The Spanish Story of the Armada, and other 

Essays 1.50 

English Seamen in the Sixteenth C'«tury. . 1.50 

The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon. . . 1.50 

The Life and Letters of Erasmus. . • . 1 .50 

The Council of Trent. 8vo. . . 1.50 



Two Chiefs of Dunboy* 1.50 



THE ENGLISH 



THE WEST INDIES 



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THE ENGLISH 



IN 



The West Indies 



OR, TEE BOW OF ULYSSES 



BY 

JAMES ANTHONY FKOUDE 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY G. PEARSON, AFTER 
DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR 



NEW YOIUv - 

CHARLES SCRLBNER'S SONS 
1900 

[All rights reserved] 



— tz — 



/ 








PREFACE. 



My purpose in writing this book is so fully explained 
in the book itself that a Preface is unnecessary. I 
visited the West India Islands in order to increase my 
acquaintance with the condition of the British Colonies. 
I have related what I saw and what I heard, with the- 
general impressions which I was led to form. 

In a few instances, when opinions were conveyed to 
me which were important in themselves, but which it 
might be undesirable to assign to the persons from whom 
I heard them, I have altered initials and disguised locali- 
ties and circumstances. 

The illustrations are from sketches of my own, which, 
except so far as they are tolerably like the scenes which 
they represent, are without value. They have been made 
producible by the skill and care of the engraver, Mr. 
Pearson, to whom my warmest thanks are due. 

J. A. F. 
Onslow Gardens : November 15. 1887. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Colonial policy— Union or separation — Self-government — Varieties 
of condition — The Pacific colonies — The West Indies— Propo- 
sals for a West Indian federation — Nature of the population 
— American union and British plantations — Original conquest 
of the West Indies ......... 1 

CHAPTER II. 

In the train for Southampton — Morning papers — The new ' Locks- 
ley Hall' — Past and present — The 'Moselle' — Heavy weather 
— The petrel — The Azores . . . . . . .11 

CHAPTER III. 

The tropics — Passengers on board — Account of the Darien canal 
— Planters' complaints — West 'Indian history — The Spanish 
conqUest — Drake and Hawkins — The buccaneers — The pirates 
— French and English — Rodney — Battle of April 12 — Peace 
with honour — Doers and talkers ...... 23 

CHAPTER IV. 

First sight of Barbadoes — Origin of the name — Pere Labat — 
Bridgetown two hundred years ago— Slavery and Christianity 
— Economic crisis — Sugar bounties — Aspect of the streets — 
Government House and its occupants — Duties of a governor of 
Barbadoes 37 

CHAPTER V. 

West Indian politeness — Negro morals and felicity — Island of 
St. Vincent — Grenada — The harbour — Disappearance of the 
whites — An island of black freeholders — Tobago — Dramatic 
art — A promising incident ....... 48 



viii THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

CHAPTER VI. 

PAGE 

Charles Kingsley at Trinidad — 'Lay of the Last Buccaneer' — A 
French forban — Adventure at Aves — Mass on board a pirate 
ship — Port of Spain — A house in the tropics — A political meet- 
ing — Government House — The Botanical Gardens — Kingsley's 
rooms — Sugar estates and coolies ...... 59 

CHAPTER VII, 

A coolie village — Negro freeholds — Waterworks — Pythons — Slavery 
— Evidence of Lord Rodney — Future of the negroes — Necessity 
of English rule — The Blue Basin — Black boy and crayfish . 75 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Home Rule in Trinidad — Political aspirations — Nature of the pro- 
blem — Crown administration — Colonial governors — A Russian 
apologue — Dinner at Government House — ' The Three Fishers ' 
— Charles Warner — Alternative futures of the colony . . 85 

CHAPTER IX. 

Barbadoes again — Social condition of the island — Political constitu- 
tion — Effects of the sugar bounties — Dangers of general bank- 
ruptcy — The Hall of Assembly — Sir Charles Pearson— Society 
in Bridgetown — A morning drive — Church of St. John's — Sir 
Graham Briggs — An old planter's palace — The Chief Justice 
of Barbadoes . 100 

CHAPTER X. 

Leeward and Windward Islands — The Caribs of Dominica — Visit 
of Pere Labat — St. Lucia— The Pitons — The harbour at Castries 
— Intended coaling station — Visit to the administrator — The 
old fort and barracks— Conversation with an American— Con- 
stitution of Dominica — Land at Roseau ..... 129 

CHAPTER XL 

Curiosities in Dominica — Nights in the tropics — English and Catho- 
lic churches — The market place at Roseau — Fishing extraor- 
dinary — A storm — Dominican boatmen — Morning walks — 
Effects of the Leeward Islands Confederation — An estate culti- 
vated as it ought to be — A mountain ride— Leave the island- 
Reflections ..... 150 



CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

The Darien canal — Jamaican mail packet — Captain W. — Retrospect 
of Jamaican history. — Waterspout at sea — Hayti — Jacmel — A 
walk through the town — A Jamaican planter — First sight of 
the Blue Mountains — Port Royal — Kingston — The Colonial 
Secretary — Gordon riots — Changes in the Jamaican constitu- 
tion 176 

CHAPTER XHI. 

The English mails — Irish agitation — Two kinds of colonies— Indian 
administration — How far applicable in the West Indies — Land 
at Kingston— Government House — Dinner party — Interesting 
officer — Majuba Hill — 'Mountain station — Kingston curiosities 
— Tobacco — Valley in the Blue Mountains . . . . 204 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Visit to Port Royal— Dockyard — Town — Church — Fort Augusta — 
The eyrie in the mountains — Ride to Newcastle — Society in 
Jamaica — Religious bodies — Liberty and authority . . 222 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Church of England in Jamaica — Drive to Castleton — Botanical 
Gardens — Picnic by the river — Black women — Ball at Govern- 
ment House — Mandeville — Miss Roy — Country Society — 
Manners — American visitors — A Moravian missionary — The 
modern Radical creed . ...... 237 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Jamaican hospitality — Cherry Garden — George William Gordon — 
The Gordon riots — Governor Eyre — A dispute and its conse- 
quences—Jamaican country-house society — Modern specula- 
tion — A Spanish fable— Port Royal — The commodore — Naval 
theatricals — The modern sailor ...... 255 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Present state of Jamaica — Test of progress— Resources of the island 
— Political alternatives — Black supremacy and probable con- 
sequences — The West Indian problem ..... 277 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Passage to Cuba — A Canadian commissioner — Havana — The Moro 
— The city and harbour— Cuban money — American visitors — ■ 



x THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES 

PAGE 

The Cathedral — Tornb of Columbus — New friends — The late 
rebellion— Slave emancipation — Spain and progress — A bull 
fight 288 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Hotels in Havana — Sights in the city — Cigar manufactories — West 
Indian industries — The Captain-General — The Jesuit college — 
Father Viriez — Clubs in Havana — Spanish aristocracy — Sea 
lodging house ......... 309 

CHAPTER XX. 

Return to Havana — The Spaniards in Cuba — Prospects — American 
influence — Future of the West Indies — English rumours — Leave 
Cuba — The harbour at night — The Bahama Channel — Hayti — 
Port au Prince — The black republic — West Indian history . 331 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Return to Jamaica — Cherry Garden again — Black servants — Social 
conditions — Sir Henry Norman — King's House once more — 
Negro suffrage — The will of the people — The Irish python — 
Conditions of colonial union — Oratory and statesmanship . 350 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Going home — Retrospect — Alternative courses — Future of the Em- 
pire — Sovereignty of the sea — The Greeks — The rights of man 
— Plato — The voice of the people — Imperial federation — 
Hereditary colonial policy — New Irelands — Effects of party 
government 362 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Mountain Crater, Dominica Frontispiece 

Blue Basin, Trinidad To face page 82 



Morning Walk, Dominica. .... 

Port Royal, Jamaica 

Valley in the Blue Mountains, Jamaica 
Kingston and Harbour, from Cherry Garden 
Havana, from the Quarries .... 
Port au Prince, Hayti ..... 



154 
194 
220 
4 266 

« 294 
« 327 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST INDIES. 



CHAPTER I. 



Colonial policy — Union or separation — Self-government — Varieties of 
condition — The Pacific colonies — The West Indies — Proposals for a 
West Indian federation — Nature of the population— American union 
and British plantations— Original conquest of the West Indies. 

The Colonial Exhibition has come and gone. Delegates 
from our great self-governed dependencies have met and 
consulted together, and have determined upon a common 
course of action for Imperial defence. The British race 
dispersed over the world have celebrated the Jubilee of the 
Queen with an enthusiasm evidently intended to bear a 
special and peculiar meaning. The people of these islands 
and their sons and brothers and friends and kinsfolk in 
Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand have declared 
with a general voice, scarcely disturbed by a discord, that 
they are fellow-subjects of a single sovereign, that they are 
united in feeling, united in loyalty, united in interest, and 
that they wish and mean to preserve unbroken the integrity 
of the British Empire. This is the answer which the democ- 
racy has given to the advocates of the doctrine of separation. 
The desire for union while it lasts is its own realisation. As 
long as we have no wish to part we shall not part, and the 
wish can never rise if when there is occasion we can meet and 
deliberate together with the same regard for each other's wel- 
fare which has been shown in the late conference in London. 



2 The English in the West Indies. 

Events mock at human foresight, and nothing is certain 
but the unforeseen. Constitutional government and an inde- 
pendent executive were conferred upon our larger colonies, 
with the express and scarcely veiled intention that at the 
earliest moment they were to relieve the mother country of 
responsibility for them. They were regarded as fledgelings 
who are fed only by the parent birds till their feathers are 
grown, and are then expected to shift for themselves. They 
were provided with the full plumage of parliamentary insti- 
tutions on the home pattern and model, and the expectation 
of experienced politicians was that they would each at the 
earliest moment go off on their separate accounts, and would 
bid us a friendly farewell. The irony of fate has turned to 
folly the wisdom of the wise. The wise themselves, the same 
political party which were most anxious twenty years ago to 
see the colonies independent, and contrived constitutions for 
them which they conceived must inevitably lead to separation, 
appeal now to the effect of those very constitutions in drawing 
the Empire closer together, as a reason why a similar method 
should be immediately adopted to heal the differences be- 
tween Great Britain and Ireland. New converts to any be- 
lief, political or theological, are proverbially zealous, and per- 
hajDS in this instance they are over-hasty. It does not follow 
that because people of the same race and character are drawn 
together by equality and liberty, people of different races and 
different characters, who have quarrelled for centuries, will 
be similarly attracted to one another. Yet so far as our own 
colonies are concerned it is clear that the abandonment by 
the mother country of all pretence to interfere in their in- 
ternal management has removed the only cause which could 
possibly have created a desire for independence. We can- 
not, even if we wish it ourselves, shake off connections who 
cost us nothing and themselves refuse to be divided. Poli- 
ticians may quarrel ; the democracies have refused to quarrel ; 



Colonial Self- Government. 3 

and the result of the wide extension of the suffrage through- 
out the Empire has been to show that being one the British 
people everywhere intend to remain one. With the same 
blood, the same language, the same habits, the same tra- 
ditions, they do not mean to be shattered into dishonoured 
fragments. All of us, wherever we are, can best manage our 
own affairs within our own limits ; yet local spheres of self- 
management can revolve round a common centre while there 
is centripetal power sufficient to hold them ; and so long as 
England ' to herself is true' and continues worthy of her 
ancient reputation, there are no causes working visibly above 
the political horizon which are likely to induce our self-gov- 
erned colonies to take wing and leave us. The strain will 
come with the next great war. During peace these colonies 
have only experienced the advantage of union with us. They 
will then have to share our dangers, and may ask why they 
are to be involved in quarrels which are not of their own 
making. How they will act then only experience can tell ; 
and that there is any doubt about it is a sufficient answer to 
those rapid statesmen who would rush at once into the ap- 
plication of the same principle to countries whose continuance 
with us is vital to our own safety, whom we cannot part with 
though they were to demand it at the cannon's moutb. 

But the result of the experiment is an encouragement as 
far as it has gone to those who would extend self-govern- 
ment through the whole of our colonial system. It seems 
to lead as a direct road into the ' Imperial Federation ' 
which has fascinated the general imagination. It removes 
friction. We relieve ourselves of responsibilities. If federa- 
tion is to come about at all as a definite and effective organi- 
sation, the spontaneous action of the different members of 
the Empire in a position in which they are free to stay with 
us or to leave us as they please, appears the readiest and 
perhaps the only means by which it can be brought to pass. 



4 The English in the West Indies. 

So plausible is the theory, so obviously right would it be 
were the problem as simple and the population of all our 
colonies as homogeneous as in Australia, that one cannot 
wonder at the ambition of politicians to win themselves a 
name and achieve a great result by the immediate adoption 
of it. Great results generally imply effort and sacrifice. 
Here effort is unnecessary and sacrifice is not demanded. 
Everybody is to have what he wishes, and the effect is to 
come about of itself. When Ave think of India, when we 
think of Ireland, prudence tells us to hesitate. Steps once 
taken in this direction cannot be undone, even if found to 
lead to the wrong place. But undoubtedly, wherever it is 
possible the principle of self-government ought to be applied 
in our colonies and will be applied, and the danger now is 
that it will be tried in haste in countries either as yet unripe 
for it or from the nature of things unfit for it. The liberties 
which we grant freely to those whom we trust and who do 
not require to be restrained, we bring into disrepute if we 
concede them as readily to perversity or disaffection or to 
those who, like most Asiatics, do not desire liberty, and pros- 
per best when they are led and guided. 

In this complex empire of ours the problem pi'esents itself 
in many shapes, and each must be studied and dealt with 
according to its character. There is the broad distinction 
between colonies and conquered countries. Colonists are 
part of ourselves. Foreigners attached by force to our do- 
minions may submit to be ruled by us, but will not alwaya 
consent to rule themselves in accordance with our views or 
interests, or remain attached to us if we enable them to leave 
us when they please. The Crown, therefore, as in India, 
rules directly by the police and the army. And there are 
colonies which are neither one nor the other, where our own 
people have been settled and have been granted the land in 
possession with the control of an insubordinate population, 



Varieties of Character. 5 

themselves claiming political privileges which had to be re- 
fused to the rest. This was the position of Ireland, and the 
result of meddling theoretically with it ought to have taught 
us caution. Again, there are colonies like the West Indies, 
either occupied originally by ourselves, as Barbadoes, or taken 
by force from France or Spain, where the mass of the popu- 
lation were slaves who have been since made free, but where 
the extent to which the coloured people can be admitted to 
share in the administration is still an unsettled question. 
To throw countries so variously circumstanced under an 
identical system would be a wild experiment. Whether we 
ought to try such an experiment at all, or even wish to try it 
and prepare the way for it, depends perhaps on whether we 
have determined that under all circumstances the retention 
of them under our own flag is indispensable to our safety. 

I had visited our great Pacific colonies. Circumstances 
led me afterwards to attend more . particularly to the West 
Indies. They were the earliest, and once the most prized, of 1 
all our distant possessions. They had been won by the most 
desperate struggles, and had been the scene of our greatest 
naval glories. In the recent discussion on the possibility of 
an organised colonial federation, various schemes came under 
my notice, in every one of which the union of the W x est Ind- 
ian Islands under a free parliamentary constitution was re- 
garded as a necessary preliminary. I was reminded of a con- 
versation which I had held seventeen years ago with a high 
colonial official specially connected with the West Indian de- 
partment, in which the federation of the islands under such 
a constitution was spoken of as a measure already determined 
on, though with a view to an end exactly the opposite of that 
which was now desired. The colonies universally were then 
regarded in such quarters as a burden upon our resources, of 
which we were to relieve ourselves at the earliest moment. 
They were no longer of value to us ; the whole world had be- 



6 The English in the West Indies. 

come our market ; and whether they were nominally attached 
to the Empire, or were independent, or joined themselves to 
some other power, was of no commercial moment to us. It 
was felt, however, that as long as any tie remained, we should 
be obliged to defend them in time of war ; while they, in con- 
sequence of their connection, would be liable to attack. The 
sooner, therefore, the connection was ended, the better for 
them and for us. 

By the constitutions which had been conferred upon them, 
Australia and Canada, New Zealand and the Cape, were as- 
sumed to be practically gone. The same measures were to 
be taken with the West Indies. They were not prosperous. 
They formed no outlet for British emigration. The white 
population was diminishing ; they were dissatisfied ; they lay 
close to the great American republic, to which geographically 
they more properly belonged. Representative assemblies un- 
der the Crown had failed to produce the content expected from 
them or to give an impulse to industry. The free negroes 
could not long be excluded from the franchise. The black 
and white races had not amalgamated and were not inclinine: 
to amalgamate. The then recent Gordon riots had been fol- 
lowed by the suicide of the old Jamaican constitution. The 
government of Jamaica had been flung back upon the 
Crown, and the Crown was impatient of the addition to its 
obligations. The official of whom I speak informed me that 
a decision had been irrevocably taken. The troops were to 
be withdrawn from the islands, and Jamaica, Trinidad, and 
the English Antilles were to be masters of their own destiny, 
either to form into free communities like the Spanish Ameri- 
can republics, or join the United States, or to do what they 
pleased, with the sole understanding that we were to have no 
more responsibilities. 

I do not know how far the scheme was matured. To an out- 
side spectator it seemed too hazardous to have been seriously 



Whites and Blacks. 7 

meditated. Yet I was told that it had not been meditated 
only but positively determined upon, and that further discus- 
sion of a settled question would be fruitless and needlessly 
irritating. 

Politicians with a favourite scheme are naturally sanguine. 
It seemed to me that in a West Indian Federation the black 
race would necessarily be admitted to their full rights as citi- 
zens. Their numbers enormously preponderated, and the 
late scenes in Jamaica were signs that the two colours would 
not blend into one, that there might be, and even inevitably 
would be, collisions between them which would lead to ac- 
tions which we could not tolerate. The white residents and 
the negroes had not been drawn together by the abolition of 
slavery, but were further apart than ever. The whites, if by 
superior intelligence they could gain the upper hand, would 
not be allowed to keep it. As little would they submit to be 
ruled by a race whom they despised ; and I thought it quite 
certain that something would happen which would compel 
the British Government to interfere again, whether we liked 
it or not. Liberty in Hayti had been followed by a massacre 
of the French inhabitants, and the French settlers had 
done no worse than we had done to deserve the ill will of 
their slaves. Fortunately opinion changed in England be- 
fore the experiment could be tried. The colonial policy of 
the doctrinaire statesmen was no sooner understood than it 
was universally condemned, and they could not press propo- 
rsals on the West Indies which the West Indians showed so 
little readiness to meet. 

So things drifted on, remaining to appearance as they were. 
The troops were not recalled. A minor confederation was 
formed in the Leeward Antilles. The Windward group was 
placed under Barbadoes, and islands which before had gov- 
ernors of their own passed under subordinate administrators. 
Local councils continued under various condition.;, the popu- 



8 The English in the West Indies. 

lar element being cautiously and silently introduced. The 
blacks settled into a condition of easy-going peasant pro- 
prietors. But so far as the white or English interest was con- 
cerned, two causes which undermined West Indian prosperity 
continued to operate. So long as sugar maintained its price 
the planters with the help of coolie labour were able to strug- 
gle on ; but the beetroot bounties came to cut from under 
them the industry in which they had placed their main de- 
pendence ; the reports were continually darker of distress 
and rapidly approaching ruin. Petitions for protection were 
not or could not be granted. They were losing heart — the 
worst loss of all ; while the Home Government, no longer 
with a view to separation, but with the hope that it might 
produce the same effect which it had produced elsewhere, were 
still looking to their old remedy of the extension of the prin- 
ciple of self-government. One serious step was taken very 
recently towards the re-establishment of a constitution in Ja- 
maica. It was assumed that it had failed before because the 
blacks were not properly represented. The council was again 
made partially elective, and the black vote was admitted on 
the widest basis. A power was retained by the Crown of in- 
creasing in case of necessity the nominated official members 
to a number which would counterbalance the elected mem- 
bers ; but the power had not been acted on and was not per- 
haps designed to continue, and a restless hope was said to 
have revived among the negroes that the day was not far off 
when Jamaica would be as Hayti and they would have the 
island to themselves. 

To a person like myself, to whom the preservation of the 
British Empire appeared to be the only public cause in which 
just now it was possible to feel concern, the problem was ex- 
tremely interesting. I had no prejudice against self-govern- 
ment. I had seen the Australian colonies growing under it 
in health and strength with a rapidity which rivalled the 



The American Union. 9 

progress of the American Union itself. I had observed in 
South Africa that the confusions and perplexities there di- 
minished exactly in proportion as the Home Government 
ceased to interfere. I could not hope that as an outsider I 
could see my way through difficulties where practised eyes 
were at a loss. But it was clear that the West Indies were 
suffering, be the cause what it might. I learnt that a party 
had risen there at last which was actually in favour of a union 
with America, and I wished to find an answer to a question 
which I had long asked myself to no purpose. My old friend 
Mr. Motley was once speaking to me of the probable acces- 
sion of Canada to the American republic. I asked him if he 
was sure that Canada would like it. ' Like it ? ' he replied. 
' Would I like the house of Baring to take me into partner- 
ship ? ' To be a partner in the British Empire appeared to 
me to be at least as great a thing as to be a state under the 
stars and stripes. What was it that Canada, what was it that 
any other colony, would gain by exchanging British citizen- 
ship for American citizenship ? What did America offer to 
those who joined her which we refused to give or neglected 
to give ? Was it that Great Britain did not take her colonies 
into partnership at all? was it that while in the United States 
the blood circulated freely from the heart to the extremities, 
so that 'if one member suffered all the body suffered with it,' 
our colonies were simply (as they used to be called) 'planta- 
tions,' offshoots from the old stock set down as circumstan- 
ces had dictated in various parts of the globe, but vitally de- 
tached and left to grow or to wither according to their own 
inherent strength ? 

At one time the West Indian colonies had been more to us 
than such casual seedlings. They had been regarded as 
precious jewels, which hundreds of thousands of English 
lives had been sacrificed to tear from France and Spain. The 
Caribbean Sea was the cradle of the Naval Empire of Great 



10 The English in the West Indies. 

Britain. There Drake and Hawkins intercepted the golden 
stream which flowed from Panama into the exchequer at 
Madrid, and furnished Philip with the means to carry on his 
war with the Reformation. The Pope had claimed to be lord 
of the new world as well as of the old, and had declared that 
Spaniards, and only Spaniards, should own territory or carry 
on trade there within the tropics. The seamen of England 
took up the challenge and replied with cannon shot. It was 
not the Crown, it was not the Government, which fought that 
battle : it was the people of England, who fought it with 
their own hands and their own resources. Adventurers, buc- 
caneers, corsairs, privateers, call them by what name we will, 
stand as extraordinary but characteristic figures on the stage 
of history, disowned or acknowledged by their sovereign as 
suited diplomatic convenience. The outlawed pirate of one 
year was promoted the next to be a governor and his coun- 
try's representative. In those waters the men were formed 
and trained who drove the Armada through the Channel into 
wreck and ruin. In those waters, in the centuries which fol- 
lowed, France and England fought for the ocean empire, and 
England won it — won it on the day when her own politicians' 
hearts had failed them, and all the powers of the world had 
combined to humiliate her, and Rodney shattered the French 
fleet, saved Gibraltar, and avenged York Town. If ever the 
naval exploits of this country are done into an epic poem — 
and since the Iliad there has been no subject better fitted for 
such treatment or better deserving it — the West Indies will 
be the scene of the most brilliant cantos. For England to 
allow them to drift away from her because they have no im- 
mediate marketable value, would be a sign that she had lost 
the feelings with which great nations always treasure the 
heroic traditions of their fathers. When those traditions 
come to be regarded as something which concerns them no 
longer, their greatness is already on the wane. 



CHAPTER H. 

In the train for Southampton- -Morning papers — The new ' Locksley 
Hall' — Past and present — The 'Moselle' — Heavy weather — The 
petrel — The Azores. 

The last week in December, when the year 1886 was wan- 
ing to its close, I left Waterloo station to join a West Indian 
mail steamer at Southampton. The air was frosty ; the fog 
lay thick over city and river ; the Houses of Parliament them- 
selves were scarcely visible as I drove across Westminster 
Bridge in the heavy London vapour — a symbol of the cloud 
which was hanging over the immediate political future. 
The morning papers were occupied with Lord Tennyson's 
new ' Locksley Hall ' and Mr. Gladstone's remarks upon it. 
I had read neither ; but from the criticisms it appeared that 
Lord Tennyson fancied himself to have seen a change pass 
over England since his boyhood, and a change which was not 
to his mind. The fruit of the new ideas which were then 
rising from the ground had ripened, and the taste was dis- 
agreeable to him. The day Avhich had followed that ' august 
sunrise ' had not been ' august ' at all ; and ' the beautiful 
bold brow of Freedom ' had proved to have something of 
brass upon it. The ' use and wont ' England, the England 
out of which had risen the men who had won her great posi- 
tion for her, was losing its old characteristics. Things which 
in his eager youth Lord Tennyson had despised he saw now 
that he had been mistaken in despising ; and the new notions 
which were to remake the world were not remaking it in si 
shape that pleased him. Like Goethe, perhaps he felt that 



12 The English in the West Indies. 

he was stumbling over the roots of the tree which he had 
helped to plant. 

The contrast in Mr. Gladstone's article was certainly re- 
markable. Lord Tennyson saw in institutions which were 
passing away the decay of what in its time had been great 
and noble, and he saw little rising in the place of them which 
humanly could be called improvement. To Mr. Gladstone 
these revolutionary years had been years of the sweeping off 
of long intolerable abuses, and of awaking to higher and 
truer perceptions of duty. Never, according to him, in any 
period of her history had England made more glorious prog- 
ress, never had stood higher than at the present moment in 
material power and moral excellence. How could it be other- 
wise when they were the years of his own ascendency ? 

Metaphysicians tell us that we do not know anything as it 
really is. "What we call outward objects are but impressions 
generated upon our sense by forces of the actual nature of 
which we are totally ignorant. We imagine that we hear a 
sound, and that the sound is something real which is outside 
us ; but the sound is in the ear and is made by the ear, and the 
thing outside is but a vibration of air. If no animal existed 
with organs of hearing the vibrations might be as before, but 
there would be no such thing as sound ; and all our opinions 
on all subjects whatsoever were equally subjective. Lord 
Tennyson's opinions and Mr. Gladstone's opinions reveal to 
us only the nature and texture of their own minds, which 
have been affected in this way or that way. The scale has not 
been made in which we can weigh the periods in a nation's 
life, or measure them one against the other. The past is 
gone, and nothing but the bones of it can be recalled. We 
but half understand the present, for each age is a chrysalis, 
and we are ignorant into what it may develop. We do not 
even try to understand it honestly, for we shut our eyes 
against what we do not wish to see. I will not despond with 



Past and Present. 13 

Lord Tennyson. To take a gloomy view of things will not 
mend them, and modern enlightenment may have excellent 
gifts in store for us which will come by-and-by, but I will not 
say that they have come as yet. I will not say that public 
life is improved when party spirit has degenerated into an 
organised civil war, and a civil war which can never end, for 
it renews its life like the giant of fable at every fresh election. 
I will not say that men are more honest and more law-abid- 
ing when debts are repudiated and law is defied in half the 
country, and Mr. Gladstone himself applauds or refuses to 
condemn acts of open dishonesty. We are to congratulate 
ourselves that duelling has ceased, but I do not know that 
men act more honourably because they can be called less 
sharply to account. ' Smuggling,' we are told, has disap- 
peared also, but the wrecker scuttles his ship or runs it 
ashore to cheat the insurance office. The Church may per- 
haps be improved in the arrangement of the services and in 
the professional demonstrativeness of the clergy, but I am 
not sure that the clergy have more influence over the minds 
of men than they had fifty years ago, or that the doctrines 
which the Church teaches are more powerful over public 
opinion. One would not gather that our morality was so su- 
perior from the reports which we see in the newspaper, and 
girls now talk over novels which the ladies' maids of their 
grandmothers might have read in secret but would have 
blushed while reading. Each age would do better if it stud- 
ied its own faults and endeavoured to mend them instead of 
comparing itself with others to its own advantage. 

This only was clear to me in thinking over what Mr. Glad- 
stone was reported to have said, and in thinking of his own 
achievements and career, that there are two classes of men 
who have played and still play a prominent part in the world 
— those who accomplish great things, and those who talk and 
make speeches about them. The doers of things are for the 



1<± The English in the West Indies. 

most part silent. Those who build up empires or discover 
secrets of science, those who paint great pictures or write 
great poems, are not often to be found spouting upon plat- 
forms. The silent men do the work. The talking men cry 
out at what is done because it is not done as they would have 
had it, and afterwards take possession of it as if it was their 
own property. Warren Hastings wins India for us ; the elo- 
quent Burke desires and passionately tries to hang him for 
it. At the supreme crisis in our history when America had 
revolted and Ireland was defiant, when the great powers of 
Europe had coalesced to crush us, and we were staggering 
under the disaster at York Town, Rodney struck a blow in 
the West Indies which sounded over the world and saved for 
Britain her ocean sceptre. Just in time, for the popular 
leaders had persuaded the House of Commons that Rodney 
ought to be recalled and peace made on any terms. Even in 
politics the names of oratorical statesmen are rarely associ- 
ated with the organic growth of enduring institutions. The 
most distinguished of them have been conspicuous only as 
instruments of destruction. Institutions are the slow growths 
of centuries. The orator cuts them down in a day. The tree 
falls, and the hand that wields the axe is admired and ap- 
plauded. The speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero pass 
into literature, and are studied as models of language. But 
Demosthenes and Cicero did not understand the facts of their 
time ; their language might be beautiful, and their senti- 
ments noble, but with their fine words and sentiments they 
only misled their countrymen. The periods where the ora- 
tor is supreme are marked always by confusion and disinte- 
gration. Goethe could say of Luther that he had thrown 
back for centuries the spiritual cultivation of mankind, by 
calling the passions of the multitude to judge of matters 
Avhich should have been left to the thinkers. We ourselves 
are just now in one of those uneasy periods, and we have de- 



The Bow of Ulysses. 15 

cided that orators are the fittest people to rule over us. The 
constituencies choose their members according to the fluency 
of their tongues. Can he make a speech ? is the one test of 
competency for a legislator, and the most persuasive of the 
whole we make prime minister. We admire the man for his 
gifts, and we accept what he says for the manner in which it 
is v uttered. He may contradict to-day what he asserted yes- 
terday. No matter. He can persuade others wherever he is 
persuaded himself. And such is the nature of him that he 
can convince himself of anything which it is his interest to 
believe. These are the persons who are now regarded as 
our wisest. It was not always so. It is not so now with na- 
tions who are in a sound state of health. The Americans, 
when they choose a President or a Secretary of State or any 
functionary from whom they require wise action, do not se- 
lect these famous speech-makers. Such periods do not last, 
for the condition which they bring about becomes always in- 
tolerable. I do not believe in the degeneracy of our race. I 
believe the present generation of Englishmen to be capable 
of all that their fathers were, and possibly of more ; but we 
are just now in a moulting state, and are sick while the pro- 
cess is going on. Or to take another metaphor. Tbe bow of 
Ulysses is unstrung. The worms have not eaten into the 
horn or the moths injured the string, but the owner of the 
house is away and the suitors of Penelope Britannia consume 
her substance, rivals one of another, each caring only for 
himself, but with a common heart in evil. They cannot 
string the bow. Only the true lord and master can string it, 
and in due time he comes, and the cord is stretched once 
more upon the notch, singing to the touch of the finger with 
the sharp note of the swallow ; and the arrows fly to their 
mark in the breasts of the pretenders, while Pallas Athene 
looks on approving from her coign of vantage. 

Random meditations of this kind were sent flying through 



16 The English in the West Indies. 

me by the newspaper articles on Tennyson and Mr. Glad- 
stone. The air cleared, and my mind also, as we ran beyond 
the smoke. The fields were covered deep with snow ; a 
white vapour clung along the ground, the winter sky shining 
through it soft and blue. The ponds and canals were hard 
frozen, and men were skating and boys were sliding, and all 
Avas brilliant and beautiful. The ladies of the forest, the 
birch trees beside the line about Farnborough, were hung 
with jewels of ice, and glittered like a fretwork wi purple and 
silver. It was like escaping out of a nightmare into happy 
healthy England once more. In the carriage with me were 
several gentlemen ; officers going out to join their regi- 
ments ; planters who had been at home on business ; young 
sportsmen with rifles and cartridge cases who were hoping 
to shoot alligators, &c, all bound like myself for the West 
Indian mail steamer. The elders talked of sugar and of 
bounties, and of the financial ruin of the islands. I had 
heard of this before I started, and I learnt little from them 
which I had not known already ; but I had misgivings 
whether I was not wandering off after all on a fool's errand. 
I did not want to shoot alligators, I did not understand cane 
growing or want to understand it, nor was I likely to find a 
remedy for encumbered and bankrupt landowners. I was at 
an age too when men grow unfit for roaming, and are ex- 
pected to stay quietly at home. Plato says that to travel to 
any profit one shou Id go between fifty and sixty ; not sooner 
because one has one's duties to attend to as a citizen ; not 
after because the mind becomes hebetated. The chief object 
of going abroad, in Plato's opinion, is to converse with 6<uoi 
<xj/S/)£s, inspired men, whom Providence scatters about the 
globe, and from whom alone wisdom can be learnt. And I, 
alas ! was long past the limit, and 6doi avSpes are not to be 
met with in these times. But if not with inspired men, I 
might fall in at any rate with sensible men who would talk 



' The Moselle? IT 

on thing's which I wanted to know. Winter and spring in a 
warm climate were pleasanter than a winter and spring at 
home ; and as there is compensation in all things, old people 
can see some objects more clearly than young people can see 
them. They have no interests of their own to mislead their 
perception. They have lived too long to believe in any for- 
mulas or theories. 'Old age,' the Greek poet says, 'is not 
wholly a misfortune. Experience teaches things which the 
young know not.' ' Old man at any rate like to think so. 

The 'Moselle,' in which I had taken my passage, was a 
large steamer of 4,000 tons, one of the best where all are 
good — on the West Indian mail line. Her long straight sides 
and rounded bottom promised that she would roll, and I may 
say that the promise was faithfully kept ; but except to the 
stomachs of the inexperienced rolling is no disadvantage. 
A vessel takes less water on board in a beam sea when she 
yields to the wave than when she standi up stiff and straight 
against it. The deck when I went on board was slippery 
with ice. There was the usual crowd and confusion before 
departure, those who were going out being un distinguishable, 
till the bell rang to clear the ship, from the friends who had 
accompanied them to take leave. I discovered, however, 
to my satisfaction that our party in the cabin would not be 
a large one. The West Indians who had come over ::or the 
Colonial Exhibition were most of them already gone, i'hey, 
along with the rest, had taken back with them a conscious- 
ness that their visit had not been wholly in vain, and that 
the interest of the old country in her distant possessions 
seemed quickening into life once more. The commissioners 
from all our dependencies had been feted in the great towns, 
and the people had come to Kensington in millions to admire 

1 & reicvov, oi>x airavra tm ytjpa Ka.ua. ' 
r],u.Treipia. 
ix tl Tl Aefou twv vtoov crvipiiTepov. 



18 The English in the West Indies. 

the productions which bore witness to the boundless resources 
of British territory. Had it been only a passing emotion of 
wonder and pride, or was it a prelude to a more energetic pol- 
icy and active resolution ? Any way it was something to be 
glad of. Receptions and public dinners and loyal speeches 
will not solve political problems, but they create the feeling 
of good will which underlies the useful consideration of them. 
The Exhibition had served the purpose which it was intended 
for. The conference of delegates grew out of it which has 
discussed in the happiest temper the elements of our future 
relations. 

But the Exhibition doors were now closed, and the multi- 
tude of admirers or contributors were dispersed or dispersing 
to their homes. In the ' Moselle ' we had only the latest 
lingerers or the ordinary passengers who went to and fro on 
business or pleasure. I observed them with the curiosity 
with which one studies persons with whom one is to be shut 
up for weeks in involuntary intimacy. One young Demerara 
planter attracted my notice, as he had with him a newly mar- 
ried and beautiful wife whose fresh complexion would so soon 
fade, as it always does in those lands where nature is brilliant 
with colour and English cheeks grow pale. I found also to my 
surprise and pleasure a daughter of one of my oldest and 
dearest friends, who was going out to join her husband in 
Trinidad. This was a happy accident to start with. An an- 
nouncement printed in Spanish in large letters in a conspicu- 
ous position intimated that I must be prepared for habits in- 
some of our companions of a less agreeable kind. 

' Se suplica a los senores pasajeros de no escupir sobre la 
cubierta de popa.' 

I may as well leave the words untranslated, but the 
' supplication ' is not unnecessary. The Spanish colonists, 
like their countrymen at home, smoke everywhere, with the 
usual consequences. The captain of one of our mail boats 



8 The Moselle: 19 

found it necessary to read one of them who disregarded it 
a lesson which he would remember. He sent for the 
quartermaster with a bucket and a mop, and ordered him to 
stay by this gentleman and clean up till he had done. 

The wind when we started was light and keen from the 
north. The afternoon sky was clear and frosty. Southamp- 
ton Water was still as oil, and the sun went down crimson 
behind the brown woods of the New Forest. Of the 'Mo- 
selle's' speed we had instant evidence, for a fast Government 
launch raced us for a mile or two, and off Netley gave up the 
chase. We went leisurely along, doing thirteen knots with- 
out effort, swept by Calshot into the Solent, and had cleared 
the Needles before the last daylight had left us. In a few 
days the ice would be gone, and we should lie in the soft air 
of perennial summer. 

Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes : 
Eripuere jocos, Venerem, convivia, ludum — 

But the flying years had not stolen from me the delight of 
finding myself once more upon the sea ; the sea which is 
eternally young, and gives one back one's own youth and 
buoyancy. 

Down the Channel the north wind still blew, and the water 
was still smooth. We set our canvas at the Needles, and flew 
on for three days straight upon our course with a steady 
breeze. We crossed ' the Bay ' without the fiddles on the 
dinner table ; we were congratulating ourselves that mid- 
winter as it was we should reach the tropics and never need 
them. I meanwhile made acquaintances among my West 
Indian fellow-passengers, and listened to their tale of griev- 
ances. The Exhibition had been well enough in its way, but 
Exhibitions would not fill an empty exchequer or restore 
ruined plantations. The mother country I found was still 
regarded as a stepmother, and from more than one quarter I 



20 The English in the West Indies. 

heard a more than muttered wish that they could be ' taken 
into partnership ' by the Americans. They were wasting 
away under Free Trade and the sugar bounties. The mother 
country gave them fine words, but words were all. If they 
belonged to the United States they would have the benefit of 
a close market in a country where there were 50,000,000 
sugar drinkers. Energetic Americans would come among 
them and establish new industries, and would control the un- 
manageable negroes. From the most loyal I heard the de- 
spairing cry of the Britons, ' the barbarians drive us into the 
sea and the sea drives us back upon the barbarians.' They 
could bear Free Trade which was fair all round, but not 
Free Trade which was made into a mockery by bounties. 
And it seemed that their masters in Downing Street an- 
swered them as the Romans answered our forefathers. ' We 
have many colonies, and we shall not miss Britain. Britain 
is far off, and must take care of herself. She brings us re- 
sponsibility, and she brings us no revenue ; we cannot tax 
Italy for the sake of Britons. We have given them our arms 
and our civilisation. We have done enough. Let them do 
now what they can or please.' Virtually this is what England 
says to the West Indians, or would say if despair made them 
actively troublesome, notwithstanding Exhibitions and exj^an- 
sive sentiments. The answer from Rome we can now see was 
the voice of dying greatness, which was no longer worthy of 
the place in the world which it had made for itself in the days 
of its strength ; but it doubtless seemed reasonable enough 
at the time, and indeed was the only answer which the Rome 
of Honorius could give. 

A change in the weather cut short our conversation, and 
drove half the company to their berths. On the fourth morn- 
ing the wind chopped back to the northwest. A beam-sea 
set in, and the 'Moselle ' justified my conjectures about her. 
She rolled gunwale under, rolled at least forty degrees each 



A Storm at Sea. 21 

way, and unshipped a boat out of her davits to windward. 
The waves were not as high as I have known the Atlantic 
produce when in the humour for it, but they were short, 
steep, and curling. Tons of water poured over the deck. 
The few of us who ventured below to dinner were hit by the 
dumb waiters which swung over our heads ; and the living 
waiters staggered about with the dishes and upset the soup 
into our laps. Everybody was grumbling and miserable. 
Driven to my cabin I was dozing on a sofa when I was jerked 
off and dropped upon the floor. The noise down below on 
these occasions is considerable. The steering chains clank, 
unfastened doors slam to and fro, plates and dishes and glass 
fall crashing at some lurch which is heavier than usual, with 
the roar of the sea underneath as a constant accompaniment. 
When a wave strikes the ship full on the quarter and she 
staggers from stem to stern, one wonders how any construc- 
tion of wood and iron can endure such blows without being 
shattered to fragments. And it would be shattered, as I 
heard an engineer once say, if the sea was not such a gentle 
creature after all. I crept up to the deck house to watch 
through the lee door the wild magnificence of the storm. 
Down came a great green wave, rushed in a flood over every- 
thing, and swept me drenched to the skin down the stairs 
into the cabin. I crawled to bed to escape cold, and slid up 
and down my berth like a shuttle at every roll of the ship till 
I fell into the unconsciousness which is a substitute for sleep, 
slept at last really, and woke at seven in the morning to find 
the sun shining, and the surface of the ocean still undulating 
but glassy calm. The only signs left of the tempest were the 
swallow-like petrels skimming to and fro in our wake, picking 
up the scraps of food and the plate washings which the cook's 
mate had thrown overboard ; smallest and beautifullest of all 
the gull tribe, called petrel by our ancestors, who went to 
their Bibles more often than we do for their images, in mem- 



22 The English in the West Indies. 

ory of St. Peter, because they seem for a moment to stand 
upon the water when they stoop upon any floating object. 1 
In the afternoon we passed the Azores, rising blue and fairy- 
like out of the ocean ; unconscious they of the bloody battles 
which once went on under their shadows. There it was that 
Grenville, in the ' Revenge,' fought through a long summer 
day alone against a host of enemies, and died there and won 
immortal honour. The Azores themselves are Grenville's 
monument, and in the memory of Englishmen are associated 
for ever with his glorious story. Behind these islands, too, 
lay Grenville's comrades, the English privateers, year after 
year waiting for Philip's plate fleet. Behind these islands 
lay French squadrons waiting for the English sugar ships. 
They are calm and silent now, and are never likely to echo 
any more to battle thunder. Men come and go and play out 
their little dramas, epic or tragic, and it matters nothing to 
nature. Their wild pranks leave no scars, and the decks are 
swept clean for the next comers. 

1 This is the explanation of the name which is given by Dampier. 



CHAPTER III 

The tropics— Passengers on board — Account of the Darien Canal — Plant- 
ers' complaints — West Indian history— The Spanish conquest — 
Drake and Hawkins — The buccaneers — The pirates — French and 
English — Rodney — Battle of April 12 — Peace with honour — Doers 
and talkers. 

Another two days and we were in the tropics. The north- 
east trade blew behind us, and our own speed being taken off 
from the speed of the wind there was scarcely air enough to 
fill our sails. The waves went down and the ports were 
opened, and we had passed suddenly from winter into per- 
petual summer, as Jean Paul says it will be with us in death. 
Sleep came back soft and sweet, and the water was warm in 
our morning bath, and the worries and annoyances of life 
vanished in these sweet surroundings like nightmares when 
we wake. How well the Greeks understood the spiritual 
beauty of the sea ! ®d\acrcra kXv^cl iravra Tav9p(i)-(Dv KaKoi, says 
Euripides. ' The sea washes off all the woes of men.' The 
passengers lay about the decks in their chairs reading story 
books. The young ones played Bull. The officers flirted 
mildly with the pretty young ladies. For a brief interval 
care and anxiety had spread their wiugs and flown away, and 
existence itself became delightful. 

There was a young scientific man on board who interested 
me much. He had been sent out from Kew to take charge 
of the Botanical Gardenia in Jamaica — was quiet, modest, and 
unaffected, understood his own subjects well, and could make 
others understand them ; with Lira I had much agreeable 



24 The English in the West Indies. 

conversation. And there was another singular person who 
attracted me even more. I took him at first for an American. 
He was a Dane I found, an engineer by profession, and was 
on his way to some South American republic. He Avas a long 
lean man with grey eyes, red hair, and a laugh as if he so en- 
joyed the thing that amused him that he wished to keep it 
all to himself, laughing inwardly till he choked and shook 
with it. His chief amusement seemed to have lain in watch- 
ing the performances of Liberal politicians in various parts 
of the world. He told me of an opposition leader in some 
parliament whom his rival in office had disposed of by shut- 
ting him up in the caboose. ' In the caboose,' he repeated, 
screaming with enjoyment at the thought of it, and evidently 
wishing that all the parliamentary orators on the globe were 
in the same place. In his wanderings he had been lately at 
the Darien Canal, and gave me a wonderful account of the 
condition of things there. The original estimate of the prob- 
able cost had been twenty-six millions of our (English) 
money. Most of these millions had been spent already, and 
only a fifth of the whole had as yet been executed. The en- 
tire cost would not be less, under the existing management, 
than one hundred and twenty millions, and he evidently 
doubted whether the canal would ever be completed at all, 
though professionally he would not confess to such an opin- 
ion. The waste and plunder had been incalculable. The 
works and the gold that were set moving by them made a 
feast for unclean harpies of both sexes from every nation in 
the four continents. I liked everything about Mr. ex- 
cept his ears, the flaps of which stood out at right angles. 
Tom Cringle's Obed may have been something like him. 

There was a small black boy among us, evidently of pure 
blood, for his hair was wool and his colour black as ink. 
His parents must have been well-to-do, for the boy had been 
in Europe to be educated. The officers on board and some 



Passengers. 25 

of the ladies played with hiin as they would play with a 
monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, perhaps 
less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and 
pushing out his long thin arms between the bars were curi- 
ously suggestive of the original from whom we are told now 
that all of us came. The worst of it was that, being lifted 
above his own people, he had been taught to despise them. 
He was spoilt as a black and could not be made into a Avhite, 
and this I found afterwards was the invariable and dangerous 
consequence whenever a superior negro contrived to raise 
himself. He might do well enough himself, but his family 
feel their blood as a degradation. His children will not 
marry among their own people, and not only will no white 
girl marry a negro, but hardly any dowry can be large enough 
to tempt a "West Indian white to make a wife of a black lady. 
This is one of the most sinister features in the present state 
of social life there. 

Small personalities cropped up now and then. We had 
representatives of all professions among us except the Church 
of England clergy. Of them we had not one. The captain, 
as usual, read us the service on Sundays on a cushion for 
a desk, with the union jack spread over it. On board ship 
the captain, like a sovereign, is supreme, and in spiritual 
matters as in secular. Drake was the first commander who 
carried the theory into practice when he excommunicated his 
chaplain. It is the law now, and the tradition has gone on 
unbroken. In default of clergy we had a missionary, who 
for the most part kept his lips closed. He did open them 
once, and at my expense. Apropos of nothing he said to 
me, ' I wonder, sir, whether you ever read the remarks upon 
you in the newspapers. If all the attacks upon your writings 
which I have seen were collected together they would make 
an interesting volume.' This was all. He had delivered his 
soul and relapsed into silence. 



26 The English in the West Indies. 

From a Puerto Rico merchant I learnt that, if the English 
colonies were in a bad way, the Spanish colonies were in a 
worse. His own island, he said, was a nest of squalor, 
misery, vice, and disease. Blacks and whites were equally 
immoral ; and so far as habits went, the whites were the 
filthier of the two. The complaints of the English West Ind- 
ians were less sweeping, and, as to immorality between 
whites and blacks, neither from my companions in the 
' Moselle ' nor anywhere afterward did I hear or see a sign 
of it. The profligacy of planter life passed away with 
slavery, and the changed condition of the two races makes 
impossible any return to the old habits. But they had 
wrongs of their own, and were eloquent in their exposition 
of them. We had taken the islands from France and Spain 
at an enormous expense, and we were throwing them aside 
like a worn-out child's toy. We did nothing for them. W T e 
allowed them no advantage as British subjects, and when 
they tried to do something for themselves, we interposed 
with an Imperial veto. The United States, seeing the West 
Indian trade gravitating towards New York, had offered them 
a commercial treaty, being willing to admit their sugar duty 
free, in consideration of the islands admitting in return their 
salt fish and flour and notions. A treaty had been actually 
agreed to between the United States and the Spanish islands. 
A similar treaty had been freely offered to them, which 
might have saved them from ruin, and the Imperial Govern- 
ment had disallowed it. How, under such treatment, could 
we expect them to be loyal to the British connection? 

It was a relief to turn back from these lamentations to the 
brilliant period of past West Indian history. With the 
planters of the present it was all sugar — sugar and the lazy 
blacks who were England's darlings and would not work for 
them. The handbooks were equally barren. In them I 
found nothing but modern statistics pointing to dreary con- 



West Indian History. 27 

elusions, and in the place of any human interest long stories 
of constitutions, suffrages, representative assemblies, powers 
of elected members, and powers reserved to the Crown. 
Such things, important as they might be, did not touch my 
imagination. And to an Englishman, proud of his country, 
the West Indies had a far higher interest. Strange scenes 
streamed across my memory, and a shadowy procession of 
great figures who have printed their names in history. 
Columbus and Cortez, Vasco Nuilez, and Las Casas ; the 
millions of innocent Indians who, according to Las Casas, 
were destroyed out of the islands, the Spanish grinding them 
to death in their gold mines ; the black swarms who were 
poured in to take their place, and the frightful story of the 
slave trade. Behind it all was the European drama of the 
sixteenth century — Charles V. and Philip fighting against the 
genius of the new era, and feeding their armies with the in- 
gots of the new world. The convulsion spread across the 
Atlantic. The English Protestants and the French Hugue- 
nots took to sea like water dogs, and challenged their ene- 
mies in their own special domain. To the popes and the 
Spaniards the new world was the property of the Church and 
of those who had discovered it. A papal bull bestowed on 
Spain all the countries which lay within the tropics west of 
the Atlantic — a form of Monroe doctrine, not unreasonable 
as long as there was force to maintain it, but the force was 
indispensable, and the Protestant adventurers tried the ques- 
tion with them at the cannon's mouth. They were of the re- 
formed faith all of them, these sea rovers of the early days, 
and, like their enemies, they were of a very mixed complex- 
ion. The Spaniards, gorged with plunder and wading in 
blood, were at the same time, and in their own eyes, crusad- 
ing soldiers of the faith, missionaries of the Holy Church, 
and defenders of the doctrines which were impiously assailed 
in Europe. The privateers from Plymouth and Rochello 



28 The English in the West Indies. 

paid also for the cost of their expeditions with the pillage of 
ships and towns and, the profits of the slave trade ; and they 
too were the unlicensed champions of spiritual freedom in 
their own estimate of themselves. The gold which was 
meant for Alva's troops in Flanders found its way into the 
treasure houses of the London companies. The logs of the 
voyages of the Elizabethan navigators represent them faith- 
fully as they were, freebooters of the ocean in one aspect of 
them ; in another, the sea warriors of the Reformation — un- 
commissioned, unrecognised, fighting on their own respon- 
sibility, liable to be disowned when they failed, while the 
Queen herself would privately be a shareholder in the ad- 
venture. It was a wild anarchic scene, fit cradle of the spirit- 
ual freedom of a new age, when the nations of the earth were 
breaking the chains in which king and priest had bound them. 

To the Spaniards, Drake and his comrades were corsarios, 
robbers, enemies of the human race, to be treated to a short 
shrift whenever found and caught. British seamen who fell 
into their hands were carried before the Inquisition at Lima 
or Carthagena and burnt at the stake as heretics. Four of 
Drake's crew were unfortunately taken once at Vera Cruz. 
Drake sent a message to the governor-general that if a hair 
of their heads was singed he would hang ten Spaniards for 
each one of them. (This curious note is at Simancas, where 
I saw it.) So great an object of terror at Madrid was El 
Draque that he was looked on as an incarnation of the old 
serpent, and when he failed in his last enterprise and news 
came that he was dead, Lope de Vega sang a hymn of triumph 
in an epic poem which he called 'The Dragontea.' 

When Elizabeth died and peace was made with Spain, the 
adventurers lost something of the indirect countenance which 
had so far been extended to them ; the execution of Raleigh 
being one among other marks of the change of mind. But 
they continued under other names, and no active effort was 



West Indian History. 29 

made to suppress them. The Spanish Government did in 
1627 agree to leave England in possession of Barbadoes, but 
the pretentions to an exclusive right to trade continued to be 
maintained, and the English and French refused to recognise 
it. The French privateers seized Tortuga, an island off St. 
Domingo, and they and their English friends swarmed in the 
Caribbean Sea as buccaneers or flibustiers. They exchanged 
names, perhaps as a symbol of their alliance. 'Flibustier' 
was English and a corruption of freebooter. 'Buccaneer' 
came from the boucan, or dried beef, of the wild cattle which 
the French hunters shot in Espafiola, and which formed the 
chief of their sea stores. Boucan became a French verb, 
and, according to Labat, was itself the Carib name for the 
cashew nut. 

War breaking out again in Cromwell's time, Penn and Ven- 
ables took Jamaica. The flibustiers from the Tortugas drove 
the Spaniards out of Hayti, which was annexed to the French 
crown. The comradeship in religious enthusiasm which had 
originally drawn the two nations together cooled by degrees, 
as French Catholics as well as Protestants took to the trade. 
Port Royal became the headquarters of the English bucca- 
neers — the last and greatest of them being Henry Morgan, 
who took and plundered Panama, was knighted for his ser- 
vices, and was afterwards made governor of Jamaica. From 
the time when the Spaniards threw open their trade, and 
English seamen ceased to be delivered over to the Inquisition, 
the English buccaneers ceased to be respectable characters 
and gradually drifted into the pirates of later history, when 
under their new conditions they produced their more ques- 
tionable heroes, the Kidds and Blackbeards. The French 
flibustiers continued long after — far into the eighteenth cen- 
tury — some of them with commissions as privateers, others 
asforbans or unlicensed rovers, but still connived at in Mar- 
tinique. 



30 The English in the West Indies. 

Adventurers, buccaneers, pirates pass across the stage — ■ 
the curtain falls on them, and rises on a more glorious scene. 
Jamaica had become the depot of the trade of England with 
the western world, and golden streams had poured into Port 
Royal. Barbadoes was unoccupied when England took pos- 
session of it, and never passed out of our hands ; but the An- 
tilles — the Anterior Isles — which stand like a string of jewels 
round the neck of the Caribbean Sea, had been most of them 
colonised and occupied by the French, and during the wars 
of the last century were the objects of a never ceasing conflict 
between their fleets and ours. The French had planted their 
language there, they had planted their religion there, and 
the blacks of these islands generally still speak the French 
patois and call themselves Catholics ; but it was deemed es- 
sential to our interests that the Antilles should be not French 
but English, and Antigua, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, 
and Grenada were taken and retaken and taken again in a 
struggle perpetually renewed. When the American colonies 
revolted, the West Indies became involved in the revolu- 
tionary hurricane. France, Spain, and Holland — our three 
ocean rivals — combined in a supreme effort to tear from us 
our Imperial power. The opportunity was seized by Irish 
patriots to clamour for Irish nationality, and by the English 
Radicals to demand liberty and the rights of man. It was 
the most critical moment in later English history. If we had 
3 r ielded to peace on the terms which our enemies offered, and 
the English Liberals wished us to accept, the star of Great 
Britain would have set for ever. 

The West Indies were then under the charge of Rodney, 
whose brilliant successes had already made his name famous. 
He had done his country more than yeoman's service. He 
had torn the Leeward Islands from the French. He had 
punished the Hollanders for joining the coalition by taking 
the island of St. Eustachius and three millions' worth of 



Rodney. 31 

stores and money. The patriot party at home led by Fox 
and Burke were ill pleased with these victories, for they 
wished us to be driven into surrender. Burke denounced 
Rodney as he denounced Warren Hastings, and Rodney was 
called home to answer for himself. In his absence Deruerara, 
the Leeward Islands, St. Eustachius itself, were captured or 
recovered by the enemy. The French fleet, now supreme in 
the western waters, blockaded Lord Cornwallis at York Town 
and forced him to capitulate. The Spaniards had fitted out 
a fleet at Havannah, and the Count de Grasse, the French 
admiral, fresh from the victorious thunder of the American 
cannon, hastened back to refurnish himself at Martinique, 
intending to join the Spaniards, tear Jamaica from us, and 
drive us finally and completely out of the West Indies. One 
chance remained. Rodney was ordered back to his station, 
and he went at his best speed, taking all the ships with him 
which could then be spared. It was mid-winter. He forced 
his way to Barbadoes in five weeks spite of equinoctial 
storms. The Whig orators were indignant. They insisted 
that we were beaten ; there had been bloodshed enough, and 
we must sit down in our humiliation. The Government 
yielded, and a peremj^tory order followed on Rodney's track, 
' Strike your flag and come home.' Had that fatal command 
reached him Gibraltar would have fallen and Hastings's In- 
dian Empire would have melted into air. But Rodney knew 
that his time was short, and he had been prompt to use it. 
Before the order came, the severest naval battle in English 
annals had been fought and won. De Grasse was a prisoner, 
and the French fleet was scattered into wreck and ruin. 

De Grasse had refitted in the Martinique dockyards. He 
himself and every officer in the fleet was confident that Eng- 
land was at last done for, and that nothing was left but to 
gather the fruits of the victory which was theirs already. 
Not Xerxes, when he broke through Thermopylae and 



32 The English in the West Indies. 

watched from the shore his thousand galleys streaming down 
to the Gulf of Salainis, was more assured that his prize was 
in his hands than De Grasse on the deck of the ' Ville de 
Paris,' the finest ship then floating on the seas, when he heard 
that Rodney was at St. Lucia and intended to engage him. 
He did not even believe that the English after so many re- 
verses would venture to meddle with a fleet superior in force 
and inspirited with victory. All the Antilles except St. Lucia 
were his own. Tobigo, Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vin- 
cent, Martinique, Dominica, Guadaloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, 
Antigua, and St. Kitts, he held them all in proud possession, 
a string of gems, each island large as or larger than the Isle 
of Man, rising up with high volcanic peaks clothed from base 
to crest with forest, carved into deep ravines, and fringed 
with luxuriant plains. In St. Lucia alone, lying between St. 
Vincent and Dominica, the English flag still flew, and Rod- 
ney lay there in the harbour at Castries. On April 8, 1782, 
the signal came from the north end of the island that the 
French fleet had sailed. Martinique is in sight of St. Lucia, 
and the rock is still shown from which Rodney had watched 
day by day for signs that they were moving. They were out 
at last, and he instantly weighed and followed. The air was 
light, and De Grasse was under the high lands of Dominica 
before Rodney came up with him. Both fleets were be- 
calmed, and the English were scattered and divided by a 
current which runs between the islands. A breeze at last 
blew off the land. The French were the first to feel it, and 
were able to attack at advantage the leading English division. 
Had De Grasse ' come down as he ought,' Rodney thought 
that the consequences might have been serious. In careless 
imagination of superiority they let the chance go by. They 
kept at a distance, firing long shots, which as it was did con- 
siderable damage. The two following days the fleets ma- 
noeuvred in sij?ht of each other. On the nicrht of the elev- 



Battle of the Twelfth of April. 33 

enth Eodney made signal for the whole fleet to go south un- 
der press of sail. The French thought he was flying. He 
tacked at two in the morning, and at daybreak found himself 
where he wished to be, with the French fleet on his lee quar- 
ter. The French looking for nothing but again a distant 
cannonade, continued leisurely along under the north high- 
lands of Dominica towards the channel which separates that 
island from Guadaloupe. In number of ships the fleets were 
equal ; in size and complement of crew the French were im- 
mensely superior ; and besides the ordinary ships' com- 
panies they had twenty thousand soldiers on board who were 
to be used in the conquest of Jamaica. Knowing well that » 
defeat at that moment would be to England irreparable ruin, 
they did not dream that Rodney would be allowed, even if he 
wished it, to risk a close and decisive engagement The 
English admiral was aware also that his country's fate was 
in his hands. It was one of those supreme moments which 
great men dare to use and small men tremble at. He had 
the advantage of the wind, and could force a battle or de- 
cline it, as he pleased. "With clear daylight the signal to 
engage was flying from the masthead of the ' Formidable.' 
Rodney's ship. At seven in the morning, April 12, 1782, the 
whole fleet bore down obliquely on the French line, cutting 
it directly in two. Rodney led in person. Having passed 
through and broken up their order he tacked again, still 
keeping the wind. The French, thrown into confusion, were 
unable to reform, and the battle resolved itself into a number 
of separate engagements in which the English had the choice 
of position. 

Rodney in passing through the enemy's lines the first time 
had exchanged broadsides with the ' Glorieux,' a seventy- 
four, at close range. He had shot away her masts and bow- 
sprit, and left her a bare hull ; her flag, however, still flying, 
being nailed to a splintered spar. So he left her unable at 
3 



34 The English in the West Indies. 

least to stir ; and after be had gone about came himself yard- 
arm to yardarm with the superb 'Ville de Paris,' the pride 
of France, the largest ship in the then world, where De Grasse 
commanded in person. All day long the cannon roared. 
Rodney had on board a favourite bantam cock, which stood 
perched upon the poop of the ' Formidable ' through the 
whole action, its shrill voice heard crowing through the thun- 
der of the broadsides. One by one the French ships struck 
their flags or fought on till they foundered and went down. 
The carnage on board them was terrible, crowded as they 
were with the troops for Jamaica. Fourteen thousand were 
reckoned to have been killed, besides the prisoners. The 
' Ville de Paris ' surrendered last, fighting desperately after 
hope was gone till her masts were so shattered that they 
could not bear a sail, and her decks above and below were 
littered over with mangled limbs. De Grasse gave up his 
sword to Rodney on the ' Formidable's ' quarter-deck. The 
gallant ' Glorieux,' unable to fly, and seeing the battle lost, 
hauled down her flag, but not till the undisabled remnants 
of her crew were too few to throw the dead into the sea. 
Other ships took fire and blew up. Half the French fleet 
were either taken or sunk ; the rest crawled away for the 
time, most of them to be picked up afterwards like crippled 
birds. 

So on that memorable day was the English Empire saved. 
Peace followed, but it was ' peace with honour.' The Amer- 
ican colonies were lost ; but England kept her West Indies ; 
her flag still floated over Gibraltar ; the hostile strength of 
Europe all combined had failed to twist Britannia's ocean 
sceptre from her : she sat down maimed and bleeding, but 
the wreath had not been torn from her brow, she was still 
sovereign of the seas. 

The bow of Ulysses was strung in those days. The order 
of recall arrived when the work was done. It was proudly 



Those who Make Envpi/res. 35 

obeyed ; and even the great Burke admitted that no honour 
could be bestowed upon Kodney which he had not deserved 
at his country's hands. If the British Empire is still to have 
a prolonged career before it, the men who make empires are 
the men who can hold them together. Oratorical reformers 
can overthrow what deserves to be overthrown. Institutions, 
even the best of them, wear out, and must give place to 
others, and the fine political speakers are the instruments of 
their overthrow. But the fine speakers produce nothing of 
their own, and as constructive statesmen their paths are 
strewed with failures. The worthies of England are the men 
who cleared and tilled her fields, formed her laws, built her 
colleges and cathedrals, founded her colonies, fought her 
battles, covered the ocean with commerce, and spread our 
race over the planet to leave a mark upon it which time will 
not efface. These men are seen in their work, and are not 
heard of in Parliament. "When the account is wound up, 
where by the side of them will stand our famous orators ? 
What will any one of them have left behind him save the 
wreck of institutions which had done their work and had 
ceased to serve a useful purpose ? That was their business 
in this world, and they did it and do it ; but it is no very 
glorious work, not a work over which it is possible to feel any 
' fine enthusiasm.' To chop down a tree is easier than to 
make it grow. When the business of destruction is once 
completed, they and their fame and glory will disappear 
together. Our true great ones will again be visible, and 
thenceforward will be visible alone. 

Is there a single instance in our own or any other history 
of a great political speaker who has added anything to 
human knowledge or to human worth ? Lord Chatham may 
stand as a lonely exception. But except Chatham who is 
there? Not one that I know of. Oratory is the spend- 
thrift sister of the arts, which decks itself like a strumpet 



3G The English in the West Indies. 

with the tags and ornaments which it steals from real su- 
periority. The object of it is not truth, but anything which 
it can make appear truth ; anything which it can persuade 
people to believe by calling in their passions to obscure their 
intelligence. 



CHAPTER IV. 

First sight of Barbadoes — Origin of the name — Pere Labat — Bridgetown 
two hundred years ago — Slavery and Christianity — Economic crisis — 
Sugar bounties — Aspect of the streets — Government House and its oc- 
cupants — Duties of a governor of Barbadoes. 

England was covered with snow when we left it on Decem- 
ber 30. At sunrise on January 12 we were anchored in the 
roadstead at Bridgetown, and the island of Barbadoes lay be- 
fore us shining in the haze of a hot summer morning. It is 
about the size of the Isle of Wight, cultivated so far as eye 
could see with the completeness of a garden ; no mountains 
in it, scarcely even high hills, but a surface pleasantly undu- 
lating, the prevailing colour a vivid green from the cane fields ; 
houses in town and country white from the coral rock of 
which they are built, but the glare from them relieved by 
heavy clumps of trees. What the trees were I had yet to dis- 
cover. You could see at a glance that the island was as 
thickly peopled as an anthill. Not an inch of soil seemed to 
be allowed to run to waste. Two hundred thousand is, I be- 
lieve, the present number of Barbadians, of whom nine-tenths 
are blacks. They refuse to emigrate. They cling to their 
home with innocent vanity as though it was the finest country 
in the world, and multiply at a rate so rapid that no one likes 
to think about it. Labour at any rate is abundant and cheap. 
In Barbadoes the negro is willing enough to work, for he has 
no other means of living. Little land is here allowed him to 
grow his yams upon. Almost the whole of it is still held by 
the whites in large estates, cultivated by labourers on the old 



38 The English in the West Indies. 

system, and, it is to be admitted, cultivated most admirably. 
If the West Indies are going to ruin, Barbadoes, at any rate, 
is being ruined with a smiling face. The roadstead was 
crowded with shipping — large barques, steamers, and brigs, 
schooners of all shapes and sorts. The training squadron had 
come into the bay for a day or to on their way to Trinidad, 
four fine ships, conspicuous by their white ensigns, the square- 
ness of yards, and generally imposing presence. Boats were 
flying to and fro under sail or with oars, officials coming off 
in white calico dress, with awnings over the stern sheets and 
chattering crews of negroes. Notwithstanding these exotic 
symptoms, it was all thoroughly English ; we were under the 
guns of our own men-of-war. The language of the Anglo- 
Barbadians was pure English, the voices without the small- 
est transatlantic intonation. On no one of our foreign pos- 
sessions is the print of England's foot more strongly impressed 
than on Barbadoes. It has been ours for two centuries and 
three quarters, and was organized from the first on English 
traditional lines, with its constitution, its parishes and parish 
churches and churchwardens, and schools and parsons, all on 
the old model; which the unprogressive inhabitants have 
been wise enough to leave undisturbed. 

Little is known of the island before we took possession of 
it — so little that the origin of the name is still uncertain. 
Barbadoes, if not a corruption of some older word, is Spanish 
or Portuguese, and means ' bearded.' The local opinion is 
that it refers to a banyan or fig tree which is common there, 
and which sends down from its branches long hairs or fibres 
supposed to resemble beards. I disbelieve in this derivation. 
Every Spaniard whom I have consulted confirms my own im- 
pression that 'barbados ' standing alone could no more refer 
to trees than ' barbati ' standing alone could refer to trees in 
Latin. The name is a century older than the English occu- 
pation, for I have seen it in a Spanish chart of 1525. The 



Past History. 39 

question is of some interest, since it perhaps implies that at 
the first discovery there was a race of bearded Caribs there. 
However this may be, Barbadoes, after we became masters of 
it, enjoyed a period of unbroken prosperity for two hundred 
years. Before the conquest of Jamaica, it was the principal 
mart of our West Indian trade ; and even after that conquest, 
when all Europe drew its new luxury of sugar from these 
islands, the wealth and splendour of the English residents at 
Bridgetown astonished and stirred the envy of every passing 
visitor. Absenteeism as yet was not. The owners lived on 
their estates, governed the island as magistrates unpaid for 
their services, and equally unpaid, took on themselves the de- 
fences of the island. Pere Labat, a French missionary, paid 
a visit to Barbadoes at the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. He was a clever, sarcastic kind of man, with fine liter- 
ary skill, and describes what he saw with a jealous apprecia- 
tion which he intended to act upon his own countrymen. 
The island, according to him, was running over with wealth, 
and was very imperfectly fortified. The jewellers' and silver- 
smiths' shops in Bridgetown were brilliant as on the Paris 
boulevards. The port was full of ships, the wharves and 
warehouses crammed with merchandise from all parts of the 
globe. The streets were handsome, and thronged with men 
of business, who were piling up fortunes. To the Father 
these sumptuous gentlemen were all most civil. The gov- 
ernor, an English milor, asked him to dinner, and talked 
such excellent French that Labat forgave him his nationality. 
The governor, he said, resided in a fine palace. He had a 
well furnished library, was dignified, courteous, intelligent, 
and lived in state like a prince. A review was held for the 
French priest's special entertainment, of the Bridgetown cav- 
alry. Five hundred gentlemen turned out from this one dis- 
trict admirably mounted and armed. Altogether in the isl- 
and lie says that there were 3,000 horse and 2,000 foot, every 



40 The English in the West Indies. 

one of them of course white and English. The officers 
struck him particularly. He met one who had been five 
years a prisoner in the Bastille, and had spent his time there 
in learning mathematics. The planters opened their houses 
to him. Dinners then as now were the received form of Eng- 
lish hospitality. They lived well, Labat says. They had all 
the luxuries of the tropics, and they had imported the par- 
tridges which they were so fond of from England. They had 
the costliest and choicest wines, and knew how to enjoy them. 
They dined at two o'clock, and their dinner lasted four hours. 
Their mansions were superbly furnished, and gold and silver 
plate, he observed with an eye to business, was so abundant 
that the plunder of it would pay the cost of an expedition for 
the reduction of the island. 

There was another side to all this magnificence which also 
might be turned to account. There were some thousands of 
wretched Irish, who had been transplanted thither after the 
last rebellion, and were bound under articles to labour. 
These might be counted on to rise if an invading force ap- 
peared ; and there were 60,000 slaves, who would rebel also 
if they saw hope of success. They were ill fed and hard 
driven. On the least symptom of insubordination they were 
killed without mercy ; sometimes they were burnt alive, or 
Avere hung up in iron cages to die. 1 In the French and 
Spanish islands care was taken of the souls of the poor creat- 
ures. They Avere taught their catechism, they were baptised, 

1 Labat seems to say that they were hung up alive in these cages, and 
left to die there. He says elsewhere, and it may be hoped that the ex- 
planation is the truer one, that the recently imported negroes often de- 
stroyed themselves, in the belief that when dead they would return to 
their own country. In the French islands as well as the English, the 
bodies of suicides were exposed in these cages, from which they could 
not be stolen, to convince the poor people of their mistake by their own 
eyes. He says that the contrivance was successful, and that after this 
the slaves did not destroy themselves any more. 



Slavery and Christianity. 41 

and attended mass regularly. The Anglican clergy, be said 
with professional malice, neither baptised them nor taught 
them anything, but regarded them as mere animals. To keep 
Christians in slavery they held would be wrong and indefen- 
sible, and they therefore met the difficulty by not making 
their slaves into Christians. That baptism made any essen- 
tial difference, however, he does not insist. By the side of 
Christianity, in the Catholic islands, devil worship and witch- 
craft went on among the same persons. No instance had ever 
come to his knowledge of a converted black who returned to 
his country who did not throw away his Christianity just as 
he would throw away his clothes ; and as to cruelty and im- 
morality, he admits that the English at Barbadoes were no 
worse than his own people at Martinique. 

In the collapse of West Indian prosperity which followed 
on emancipation, Barbadoes escaped the misfortunes of the 
other islands. The black population being so dense, and the 
place itself being so small, the squatting system could not be 
tried ; there was plenty of labour always, and the planters 
being relieved of the charge of their workmen when they 
were sick or worn out, had rather gained than lost by the 
change. Barbadoes, however, was not to escape for ever, 
and was now having its share of misfortunes. It is danger- 
ous for any country to commit its fortunes to an exclusive 
occupation. Sugar was the most immediately lucrative of 
all the West Indian productions. Barbadoes is exceptionally 
well suited to sugar-growing. It has no mountains and no 
forests. The soil is clean and has been carefully attended to 
for two hundred and fifty years. It had been owned during 
the present century by gentlemen who for the most part 
lived in England on the profits of their properties, and left 
the in to be managed by agents and attorneys. The method 
of management was expensive. Their own habits were ex- 
pensive. Their incomes, to which they had lived up, had 



42 The English in the JVest Indies. 

been cut short lately by a series of bad seasons. Money had 
been borrowed at high interest year after year to keep the 
estates and their owners going. On the top of this came the 
beetroot competition backed up by a bounty, and the Bar- 
badian sugar interest, I was told, had gone over a precipice. 
The unencumbered resident proprietors could barely keep 
their heads above water. The returns on three-quarters of 
the properties on the island no longer sufficed to pay the ex- 
penses of cultivation and the interest of the loans which had 
been raised upon them. There was impending a general 
bankruptcy which might break up entirely the present sys- 
tem and leave the negroes for a time without the wages 
which were the sole dependence. 

A very dark picture had thus been drawn to me of the 
prospects of the poor little island which had been once so 
brilliant. Nothing could be less like it than the bright 
sunny landscape which we saw from the deck of our vessel. 
The town, the shipping, the pretty villas, the woods, and the 
wide green sea of waving cane had no suggestion of ruin 
about them. If the ruin was coming, clearly enough it had 
not yet come. After breakfast we went on shore in a boat 
with a white awning over it, rowed by a crew of black boat- 
men, large, fleshy, shining on the skin with ample feeding 
and shining in the face with innocent happiness. They 
rowed well. They were amusing. There was a fixed tariff, 
and they were not extortionate. The temperature seemed 
to rise ten degrees when we landed. The roads were blind- 
ing white from the coral dust, the houses were white, the 
sun scorching. The streets were not the streets described 
by Labat ; no splendid magazines or jewellers' shops like 
those in Paris or London ; but there were lighters at the 
quays loading or unloading, carts dashing along with mule 
teams and making walking dangerous ; signs in plenty of 
life and business ; few white faces, but blacks and mulattoes 



The Streets of Bridgetown. 43 

swarming. The houses were substantial, though in want of 
paint. The public buildings, law courts, hall of assembly, 
&c, were solid and handsome, nowhere out of repair, though 
with something to be desired in point of smartness. The 
market square would have been well enough but for a statue 
of Lord Nelson which stands there, very like, but small and 
insignificant, and for some extraordinary reason they have 
painted it a bright pea-green. 

We crept along in the shade of trees and warehouses till 
we reached the principal street. Here my friends brought 
me to the Icehouse, a sort of club, with reading rooms and 
dining rooms, and sleeping accommodation for members from 
a distance who do not like colonial hotels. Before anything 
else could be thought of I was introduced to cocktail, with 
which I had to make closer acquaintance afterwards, cocktail 
being the established corrective of West Indian languor, 
without which life is impossible. It is a compound of rum, 
sugar, lime juice, Angostura bitters, and what else I know 
not, frisked into effervescence by a stick, highly agreeable to 
the taste and effective for its immediate purpose. Cocktail 
over, and walking in the heat being a thing not to be thought 
of, I sat for two hours in a balcony watching the people, who 
were thick as bees in swarming time. Nino-tenths of them 
were pure black ; you rarely saw a white face, but still less 
would you see a discontented one, imperturbable good hu- 
mour and self-satisfaction being written on the features of 
everyone. The women struck me especially. They were 
smartly dressed in white calico, scrupulously clean, and 
tricked out with ribands and feathers ; but their figures were 
so good and they carried themselves so well and gracefully, 
that, although they might make themselves absurd, they 
could not look vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan women, 
they are trained from childhood to carry heavy weights on 
their heads. They are thus perfectly upright, and plant 



44 The English in the West Indies. 

their feet firmly and naturally on the ground. They might 
serve for sculptors' models, and are well aware of it. There 
were no signs of poverty. Old arid young seemed well fed. 
Some had brought in baskets of fruit, bananas, oranges, pine 
apples and sticks of sugar cane ; others had yams and sweet 
potatoes from their bits of garden in the country. The men 
were active enough driving carts, wheeling barrows, or selling 
flying fish, which are caught off the island in shoals and are 
cheaper than herrings in Yarmouth. They chattered like 
a flock of jackdaws, but there was no quarrelling ; not a 
drunken man was to be seen, and all was merriment and 
good humour. My poor downtrodden black brothers and 
sisters, so far as I could judge from this first introduction, 
looked to me a very fortunate class of fellow-creatures. 

Government House, where we went to luncheon, is a large, 
airy building shaded by heavy trees with a garden at the 
back of it. West Indian houses, I found afterwards, are all 
constructed on the same pattern, the object being to keep 
the sun out and let in the wind. Long verandahs or galleries 
run round them protected by green Venetian blinds which 
can be opened or closed at pleasure ; the rooms within with 
polished floors, little or no carpet, and contrivances of all 
tkinds to keep the air in continual circulation. In the sub- 
dued green light, human figures lose their solidity and look 
as if they were creatures of air also. 

Sir Charles Lees and his lady were all that was polite and 
hospitable. They invited me to make their house 1113' home 
during my stay, and more charming host and hostess it 
would have been impossible to find or wish for. There was 
not the state which Labat described, but there was the per- 
fection of courtesy, a courtesy which must have belonged to 
their natures, or it would have been overstrained long since 
by the demands made upon it. Those who have looked on 
at a skating ring will have observed an orange or some 



Duties of a Governor. 45 

such object in the centre round which the evolutions are de- 
scribed, the ice artist sweeping out from it in long curves to 
the extreme circumference, curving back on interior arcs till 
he gains the orange again, and then off once more on a fresh 
departure. Barbadoes to the West Indian steam navigation 
is like the skater's orange. All mails, all passengers from 
Europe, arrive at Barbadoes first. There the subsidiary 
steamers catch them up, bear them north or south to the 
Windward or Leeward Isles, and on their return bring them 
back to Carlisle Bay. Every vessel brings some person or 
persons to whom the Governor is called on to show hospital- 
ity. He must give dinners to the officials and gentry of the 
island, he must give balls and concerts for their ladies, he 
must entertain the officers of the garrison. When the West 
Indian squadron or the training squadron drop into the 
roadstead, admirals, commodores, captains must all be in- 
vited. Foreign ships of war go and come continually, 
Americans, French, Spaniards, or Portuguese. Presidents 
of South American republics, engineers from Darien, all 
sorts and conditions of men who go to Europe in the English 
mail vessels, take their departure from Carlisle Bay, and if 
they are neglected regard it as a national affront. Cataracts 
of champagne must flow if the British name is not to be dis- 
credited. The expense is unavoidable and is enormous, 
while the Governor's very moderate salary is found too large 
by economic politicians, and there is a cry for reduction 
of it, 

I was of course most grateful for Sir Charles's invitation 
to myself. From him, better perhaps than from anyone, I 
could learn how far the passionate complaints which I had 
heard about the state of the islands were to be listened to as 
accounts of actual fact. I found, however, that I must post- 
pone both this particular pleasure and my stay in Barbadoes 
itself till a later opportunity. My purpose had been to re- 



46 The English in the West Indies. 

main there till I had given it ah the time which I could spare, 
thence to go on to Jamaica, and from Jamaica to return at 
leisure round the Antilles. But it had been ascertained that 
in Jamaica there was small-pox. I suppose that there gener- 
ally is small-pox there, or typhus fever, or other infectious 
disorder. But spasms of anxiety assail periodically the souls 
of local authorities. Vessels coming from Jamaica had been 
quarantined in all the islands, and I found that if I proceeded 
thither as I proposed, I should be refused permission to land 
afterwards in any one of the other colonies. In my perplexity 
my Trinidad friends invited me to accompany them at once 
to Port of Spain. Trinidad was the most thriving, or was at 
all events the least dissatisfied, of all the British possessions. 
I could have a glance at the Windward Islands on the way. 
I could afterwards return to Barbadoes, where Sir Charles 
assured me that I should still find a room waiting for me. 
The steamer to Trinidad sailed the same afternoon. I had 
to decide in haste, and I decided to go. Our luncheon over, 
we had time to look over the pretty gardens at Government 
House. There were great cabbage palms, cannon-ball trees, 
mahogany trees, almond trees, and many more which were 
wholly new acquaintances. There was a grotto made by 
climbing plants and creepers, with a fountain playing in the 
middle of it, where orchids hanging on wires threw out their 
clusters of flowers for the moths to fertilise, ferns waved their 
long fronds in the dripping showers, humming birds cooled 
their wings in the spray, and flashed in and out like rubies 
and emeralds. Gladly would I have lingered there, at least 
for a cigar, but it could not be ; we had to call on the Com- 
mander of the Forces, Sir C. Pearson, the hero of Ekowe in 
the Zulu war. Him, too, I was to see again, and hear inter- 
esting stories from about our tragic enterprise in the Trans- 
vaal. For the moment my mind was filled sufficiently with 
new impressions. One reads books about places, but the 



New Impressions. 47 

images which they create are always unlike the real object. 
All that I had seen was absolutely new and unexpected. I 
was glad of an opportunity to readjust the information which 
I had brought with me. We joined our new vessel before 
sunset, and we steamed away into the twilight. 



CHAPTER V. 

West Indian politeness — Negro morals and felicity — Island of St. Yin- 
cent — Grenada — The harbour — Disappearance of the whites— An 
island of black freeholders — Tobago — Dramatic art — A promising in- 
cident. 

West Indian civilisation is old-fashioned, and has none of 
the pushing manners which belong to younger and perhaps 
more thriving communities. The West Indians themselves, 
though they may be deficient in energy, are uniformly ladies 
and gentlemen, and all their arrangements take their com- 
plexion from the general tone of society. There is a refine- 
ment visible at once in the subsidiary vessels of the mail ser- 
vice which ply among the islands. They are almost as large 
as those which cross the Atlantic, and never on any line in 
the world have I met with officers so courteous and culti- 
vated. The cabins were spacious and as cool as a tempera- 
ture* of 80°, gradually rising as we went south, would permit. 
Punkahs waved over us at dinner. In our berths a single 
sheet was all that was provided for us, and this was one more 
than we needed. A sea was running when we cleared out 
from under the land. Among the cabin passengers was a 
coloured family in good circumstances moving about with 
nurses and children. The little things, who had never been 
at sea before, sat on the floor, staring out of their large help- 
less black eyes, not knowing what was the matter with them. 
Forward there were perhaps two or three hundred coloured 
people going from one island to another, singing, dancing, 
and chattering all night long, as radiant and happy as care- 



Negro Morals. 49 

lessness and content could make them. Sick or not sick 
made no difference. Nothing could disturb the impertur- 
bable good humour and good spirits. 

It was too hot to sleep ; we sat several of us smoking on 
deck, and I learnt the first authentic particulars of the pres- 
ent manner of life of these much misunderstood people. Ev- 
idently they belonged to a race far inferior to the Zulus and 
Caffres, whom I had known in South Africa. They were more 
coarsely formed in limb and feature. They would have been 
slaves in their own country if they had not been brought to 
ours, and at the worst had lost nothing by the change. They 
were good-natured, innocent, harmless, lazy perhaps, but not 
more lazy than is perfectly natural when even Europeans must 
be roused to activity by cocktail. 

In the Antilles generally, Barbadoes being the only excep- 
tion, negro families have each their cabin, their garden ground, 
their grazing for a cow. They live surrounded by most of 
the fruits which grew in Adam's pai*adise — oranges and plan- 
tains, bread-fruit, and cocoa-nuts, though not apples. Their 
yams and cassava grow without effort, for the soil is easily 
worked and inexhaustibly fertile. The curse is taken off from 
nature, and like Adam again they are under the covenant of 
innocence. Morals in the technical sense they have none, 
but they cannot be said to sin, because they have no knowl- 
edge of a law, and therefore they can commit no breach of the 
law. They are naked and not ashamed. They are mar- 
ried as they call it, but not parsoned. The woman prefers a 
looser tie that she may be able to leave a man if he treats her 
unkindly. Yet they are not licentious. I never saw an im- 
modest look in one of their faces, and never heard of any 
venal profligacy. The system is strange, but it answers. A 
missionary told me that a connection rarely turns out well 
which begins with a legal marriage. The children scramble 
up anyhow, and shift for themselves like chickens as soon as 
4 



50 The English in the West Indies. 

they are able to peck. Man}' die in this way by eating un- 
wholesome food, but also many live, and those who do live 
grow up exactly like their parents. It is a very peculiar state 
of things, not to be understood, as priest and missionary agree, 
without long acquaintance. There is evil, but there is not 
the demoralising effect of evil. They sin, but they sin only 
as animals, without shame, because there is no sense of doing 
wrong. They eat the forbidden fruit, but it brings with it 
no knowledge of the difference between good and evil. They 
steal, but if detected they fall back upon the Lord. It was 
de will of de Lord that they should do this or that. De Lord 
forbid that they should go against his holy pleasure. In fact 
these poor children of darkness have escaped the consequences 
of the Fall, and must come of another stock after all. 

Meanwhile they are perfectly happy. In no part of the 
globe is there any peasantry whose every want is so com- 
pletely satisfied as her Majesty's black subjects in these West 
Indian Islands. They have no aspirations to make them rest- 
less. They have no guilt upon their consciences. They have 
food for the picking up. Clothes they need not, and lodging 
in such a climate need not be elaborate. Thay have perfect 
liberty, and are safe from dangers, to Avhich if left to them- 
selves they would be exposed, for the English rule prevents 
the strong from oppressing the weak. In their own country 
they would have remained slaves to more warlike races. In 
the West Indies their fathers underwent a bondage of a cen- 
tury or two, lighter at its worst than the easiest form of it in 
Africa ; their descendants in return have nothing now to do 
save to laugh and sing and enjoy existence. Their quarrels, 
if they have any, begin and end in words. If happiness is 
the be all and end all of life, and those who have most of it 
have most completely attained the object of their being, the 
' nigger ' who now basks among the ruins of the West Indian 
plantations is the snpremest specimen of present humanity. 



St. Vincent. 51 

We retired to our berths at last. At waking we were at 
anchor off St. Vincent, an island of volcanic mountains robed 
in forest from shore to crest. Till late in the last century 
it was the headquarters of the Caribs, who kept up a savage 
independence there, recruited by runaway slaves from Bar- 
badoes or elsewhere. Brandy and Sir Ralph Abercrombie 
reduced them to obedience in 1796, and St. Vincent throve 
tolerably down to the days of free trade. Even now when I 
saw it, Kingston, the principal town, looked pretty and well 
to do, reminding me, strange to say, of towns in Norway, 
the houses stretching along the shore painted in the same 
tints of blue or yellow or pink, with the same red-tiled roofs, 
the trees coming down the hillsides to the water's edge, villas 
of modest pretensions shining through the foliage, with the 
patches of cane fields, the equivalent in the landscape of the 
brilliant Norwegian grass. The prosperity has for the last 
forty years waned and waned. There are now two thousand 
white people there, and forty thousand coloured people, and 
the proportion alters annually to our disadvantage. The 
usual remedies have been tried. The constitution has been 
altered a dozen times. Just now I believe the Crown is try- 
ing to do without one, having found the results of the elec- 
tive principle not encouraging, but we shall perhaps revert to 
it before long ; any way, the tables show that each year the 
trade of the island decreases, and will continue to decrease 
while the expenditure increases and will increase. 

I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful 
picture the island was best seen from the deck. The charac- 
teristics of the people are the same in all the Antilles, and 
could be studied elsewhere. The bustle and confusion in 
the ship, the crowd of boats round the ladder, the clamour 
of negro men's tongues, and the blaze of colours from the 
negro women's dresses, made up together a scene sufficiently 
entertaining for the hour which we remained. In the middle 



52 The English in the West Indies. 

of it the Governor, Mr. S , came on board with another 

official. They were going on in the steamer to Tobago, 
which formed part of his dominions. 

Leaving St. Vincent, we were all the forenoon passing the 
Grenadines, a string of small islands fitting into their proper 
place in the Antilles semicircle, but as if Nature had forgot- 
ten to put them together or else had broken some large 
islaud to pieces, and scattered them along the line. Some 
were large enough to have once carried sugar plantations, 
and are now made over wholly to the blacks ; others were 
fishing stations, droves of whales during certain months fre- 
quenting these waters ; others were mere rocks, amidst 
which the white-sailed American coasting schooners were 
beating up against the north-east trade. There was a stiff 
breeze, and the sea was white with short curling waves, but 
we were running before it and the wind kept the deck fresh. 
At Grenada, the next island, we were to go on shore. 

Grenada was, like St. Vincent, the home for centuries of 
man-eating Caribs, French for a century and a half, and 
finally, after many desperate struggles for it, was ceded to 
England at the peace of Versailles. It is larger than St. Vin- 
cent, though in its main features it has the same character. 
There are lakes in the hills, and a volcanic crater not wholly 
quiescent ; but the especial value of Grenada, which made us 
fight so hardly to win it, is the deep and landlocked harbour, 
the finest in all the Antilles. 

Pere Labat, to whose countrymen it belonged at the time 
of his own visit there, says that ' if Barbadoes had such a 
harbour as Grenada it would be an island without a rival in 
the world. If Grenada belonged to the English, who knew 
how to turn to profit natural advantages, it would be a rich 
and powerful colony. In itself it was all that man could de- 
sire. To live there was to live in paradise.' Labat found 
the island occupied by countrymen of his own, ' paisans aisez,' 



Grenada. 53 

he calls them, growing their tobacco, their indigo and scarlet 
rocou, their pigs and their poultry, and contented to be 
without sugar, without slaves, and without trade. The 
change of hands from which he expected so much had ac- 
tually come about. Grenada did belong to the English, and 
had belonged to us ever since Rodney's peace. I was anx- 
ious to see how far Labat's prophecy had been fulfilled. 

St. George's, the ' capital,' stands on the neck of a penin- 
sula a mile in length, which forms one side of the harbour. 
Of the houses, some look out to sea, some inwards upon the 
carenage, as the harbour is called. At the point there was a 
fort, apparently of some strength, on which the British flag 
was flying. We signalled that we had the Governor on 
board, and the fort replied with a puff of smoke. Sound there 
was none or next to none, but we presumed that it had 
come from a gun of some kind. "We anchored outside. Mr. 

S landed in an official boat, with two flags, to distinguish 

it from a missionary's boat, which had only one. The crews 
of a dozen other boats then clambered up the gangway to 
dispute possession of the rest of us, shouting, swearing, ly- 
ing, tearing us this way and that way as if we were carcases 
and they wild beasts wanting to dine upon us. We engaged 
a boat for ourselves as we supposed ; we had no sooner en- 
tered it than the scandalous boatman proceeded to take in as 
many more passengers as it would hold. Remonstrance be- 
ing vain, we settled the matter by stepping into the boat 
next adjoining, and amidst howls and execrations we were 
borne triumphantly off and were pulled in to the land. 

Labat had not exaggerated the beauty of the landlocked 
basin into which we entered on rounding the point. On 
three sides wooded hills rose high till they passed into 
mountains ; on the fourth was the castle with its slopes and 
batteries, the church and town beyond it, and everywhere 
luxuriant tropical forest trees overhanging the violet-coloured 



54 The English in the West Indies. 

water. I could well understand the Frenchman's delight 
when he saw it, and also the satisfaction with which he would 
now acknowledge that he had been a shortsighted prophet. 
The English had obtained Grenada, and this is what they 
had made of it. The forts which had been erected by his 
countrymen had been deserted and dismantled ; the castle 
on which we had seen our flag flying was a ruin ; the walls 
were crumbling and in many places had fallen down. One 
solitary gun was left, but that was honeycombed and could 
be fired only with half a charge to salute with. It was true 
that the forts had ceased to be of use, but that was because 
there was nothing left to defend. The harbour is, as I said, 
the best in the "West Indies. There was not a vessel in it, 
nor so much as a boat-yard where a spar could be replaced 
or a broken rivet mended. Once there had been a line of 
wharves, but the piles had been eaten by worms and the plat- 
forms had fallen through. Round us when we landed were 
unroofed warehouses, weed-choked courtyards, doors gone, 
and window frames fallen in or out. Such a scene of desola- 
tion and desertion I never saw in my life save once, a few 
weeks later at Jamaica. An Euglish lady with her children 
had come to the landing place to meet my friends. They, 
too, were more like wandering ghosts than human beings 
with warm blood in them. All their thoughts were on going 
home — home out of so miserable an exile. 

Nature had been simply allowed by us to resume posses- 
sion of the island. Here, where the cannon had roared, and 
ships and armies had fought, and the enterprising English 
had entered into occupancy, under which, as we are proud 
to fancy, the waste places of the earth grow green, and in- 
dustry and civilisation follow as its inevitable fruit, all was 
now silence. Not Babylon itself, with its bats and owls, was 
more dreary and desolate. And this was an English Crown 
colony, as rich in resources as any area of soil of equal size in 



Grenada. 55 

the world. England had demanded and seized the responsi- 
bility of managing it — this was the result. 

A gentleman, who for some purpose was a passing resident 
in the island, had asked us to dine with him. His house was 
three or four miles inland. A good road remained as a 
legacy from other times, and a pair of horses and a phaeton 
carried us swiftly to his door. The town of St. George's had 
once been populous, and even now there seemed no want of 
people, if mere numbers sufficed. We passed for half a mile 
through a straggling street, where the houses were evidently 
occupied though unconscious for many a year of paint or re- 
pair. They were squalid and dilapidated, but the luxuriant 
bananas and orange trees in the gardens relieved the ugliness 
of their appearance. The road when we left the town was 
overshadowed with gigantic mangoes planted long ago, with 
almond trees and cedar trees, no relations of our almonds or 
our cedars, but the most splendid ornaments of the West In- 
dian forest. The valley up which we drove was beautiful, 
and the house, when we reached it, showed taste and culture. 
Mr. had rare trees, rare flowers, and was taking advan- 
tage of his temporary residence in the tropics to make ex- 
periments in horticulture. He had been brought there, I 
believe, by some necessities of business. He told us that 
Grenada was now the ideal country of modern social reform- 
ers. It had become an island of pure peasant proprietors. 
The settlers, who had once been a thriving and wealthy com- 
munity, had melted away. Not more than six hundred Eng- 
glish were left, and these were clearing out at their best 
speed. They had sold their estates for anything which they 
could get. The free blacks had bought them, and about 
8,000 negro families, say 40,000 black souls in all, now shared 
the soil between them. Each family lived independently, 
growing coffee and cocoa and oranges, and all were doing 
very well. The possession of property had brought a sense 



56 The English in the West Indies. 

of its rights with it. They were as litigious as Irish peasants ; 
everyone was at law with his neighbour, and the island was 
a gold mine to the Attorney-General ; otherwise they were 
quiet harmless fellows, and if the politicians would only let 
them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and might 
eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good. To set 
up a constitution in such a place was a ridiculous mockery, 
and would only be another name for swindling and jobbery. 
Black the island was, and black it would remain. The con- 
ditions were never likely to arise which would bring back a 
European population ; but a governor who was a sensible 
man, who would reside and use his natural influence, could 
manage it with perfect ease. The island belonged to Eng- 
land ; we were responsible for what we made of it, and for 
the blacks' own sakes we ought not to tiy experiments upon 
them. They knew their own deficiencies, and would infin- 
itely prefer a wise English ruler to any constitution which 
could be offered them. If left entirely to themselves, they 
would in a generation or two relapse into savages ; there were 
but two alternatives before not Grenada only, but all the Eng- 
glish West Indies — either an English administration pure 
and simple like the East Indian, or a falling eventually into a 
state like that of Hayti, where they eat the babies, and no 
white man can own a yard of land. 

It was dark night when we drove back to the port. The 
houses along the road, which had looked so miserable on the 
outside, were now lighted with paraffin lamps. I could see 
into them, and was astonished to observe signs of comfort 
and even signs of taste — arm-chairs, sofas, side-boards with 
cut glass upon them, engravings and coloured prints upon 
the walls. The old state of things is gone, but a new state 
of things is rising which may have a worth of its own. The 
plant of civilisation as yet has taken but feeble root, and is 
only beginning to grow. It may thrive yet if those who have 



Dramatic Art among the Negroes. 57 

troubled all the earth will consent for another century to 
take their industry elsewhere. 

The ship's galley was waiting at the wharf when we reached 
it. The cajDtain also had been dining with a friend on shore, 
and we had to wait for him. The offshore night breeze had 
not yet risen. The harbour was smooth as a looking glass, 
and the stars shone double in the sky and on the water. The 
silence was only broken by the whistle of the lizards or the 
cry of some far-off marsh frog. The air was warmer than we 
ever feel it in the depth of an English summer, yet pure and 
delicious and charged with the perfume of a thousand flowers. 
One felt it strange that with so beautiful a possession lying 
at our doors, we should have allowed it to slide out of our 
hands. I could say for myself, like Pere Labat, the island 
was all that man could desire. ' En un mot, la vie y est deli- 
cieuse.' 

The anchor was got up immediately that we were on board. 
In the morning we were to find ourselves at Port of Spain. 

Mr. S , the Windward Island governor, who had joined 

us at St. Vincent, was, as I said, going to Tobago. De Eoe 
took the human part of his Robinson Crusoe from the story 
of Juan Fernandez. The locality is supposed to have been 
Tobago, and Trinidad the island from which the cannibal 
savages came. We are continually shuffling the cards, in a 
hope that a better game may be played with them. Tobago 
is now annexed to Trinidad. Last year it was a part of Mr. 
S — — 's dominions which he periodically visited. I fell in 
with him again on his return, and he told us an incident which 
befell him there, illustrating the uuexjoected shapes in which 
the schoolmaster is appearing among the blacks. An intima- 
tion was brought to him on his arrival that, as the Athenian 
journeymen had played Pyramus and Thisbe at the nuptials 
of Theseus and Hippolyta, a party of villagers from the in- 
terior of Tobago would like to act before his Excellency. Of 



58 The English in the West Indies. 

course he consented. They came, and went through their 

performance. To Mr. S 's, and probably to the reader's 

astonishment, the play which they had selected was tlie 
' Merchant of Venice.' Of the rest of it he perhaps thought, 
like the queen of the Amazons, that it was ' sorry staff,' but 
Shylock's representative, he said, showed real appreciation. 
With freedom and a peasant proprietary, the money lender is 
a necessary phenomenon, and the actor's imagination may 
have been assisted by personal recollections. 



CHAPTER Vt 



Charles Kingsley at Trinidad — Lay of the Last Buccaneer — A French 
forban — Adventure at Aves— Mass on board a pirate ship — Port 
of Spain — A house in the tropics — A political meeting — Govern- 
ment House — The Botanical Gardens — Kingsley's rooms — Sugar 
estates and coolies. 



I might spare myself a description of Trinidad, for the natu- 
ral features of the place, its forests and its gardens, its ex- 
cprisite flora, the loveliness of its birds and insects, have been 
described already, with a grace of touch and a fullness of 
knowledge which I could not rival if I tried, by my dear friend 
Charles Kingsley. He was a naturalist by instinct, and the 
West Indies and all belonging to them had been the passion 
of his life. He had followed the logs and journals of the 
Elizabethan adventurers till he had made their genius part of 
himself. In Amyas Leigh, the hero of ' Westward Ho,' ho 
produced a figure more completely representative of that ex- 
traordinary set of men than any other novelist, except Sir 
Walter, has ever done for an age remote from his own. He 
followed them down into their latest developments, and sang 
their swan song in his 'Lay of the Last Buccaneer.' So 
characteristic is this poem of the transformation of the West 
Indies of romance and adventure into the West Indies of 
sugar and legitimate trade, that I steal it to ornament my 
own prosaic pages. 



60 The English in the West Indies. 

THE LAY OF THE LAST BUCCANEER. 

Oh ! England is a pleasant place for thein that's rich and high, 

But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I ; 

And such a port for mariners I'll never see again 

As the pleasant Isle of Aves beside the Spanish main. 

There were forty craft in Aves that were both swift and stout, 
All furnished well with small arms and cannon all about ; 
And a thousand men in Aves made laws so fair and free 
To choose their valiant captains and obey them loyally. 

Then we sailed against the Spaniard with his hoards of plate and gold, 
Which he wrung with cruel tortures from Indian folks of old ; 
Likewise the merchant captains, with hearts as hard as stone, 
Who flog men and keelhaul them and starve them to the bone. 

Oh ! palms grew high in Aves, and fruits that shone like gold, 
And the colibris and parrots they were gorgeous to behold, ' 
And the negro maids to Aves from bondage fast did flee 
To welcome gallant sailors a sweeping in from sea. 

Oh ! sweet it was in Aves to hear the landward breeze 

A swing with good tobacco in a net between the trees, 

With a negro lass to fan you while you listened to the roar 

Of the breakers on the reef outside which never touched the shore. 

But Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be, 

So the king's ships sailed on Aves and quite put down were we. 

All day we fought like bull dogs, but they burnt the booms at night, 

And I fled in a piragua sore wounded from the fight. 

Nine days I floated starving, and a negro lass beside, 

Till for all I tried to cheer her the poor young thing she died. 

But as I lay a gasping a Bristol sail came by, 

And brought me home to England here to beg until I die. 

And now I'm old and going : I'm sure I can't tell where. 
One comfort is, this world's so hard I can't be worse off there. 
If I might but be a sea dove, I'd fly across the main 
To the pleasant Isle of Aves to look at it once again. 

By the side of this imaginative picture of a poor English 
sea rover, let me place another, an authentic one, of a French 
forban or pirate in the same seas. Kingsley's Aves, or Isle of 



A French Pirate. 61 

Birds, is down on the American coast. There is another is- 
land of the same name, which was occasionally frequented by 
the same gentry, about a hundred miles south of Dominica. 
Pere Labat going once from Martinique to Guadaloupe had 
taken a berth with Captain Daniel, one of the most noted of 
the French corsairs of the day, for better security. People 
were not scrupulous in those times, and Labat and Daniel 
had been long good friends. They were caught in a gale off 
Dominica, blown away, and carried to Aves, where they found 
an English merchant ship lying a wreck. Two English ladies 
from Barbadoes and a dozen other people had escaped on 
shore. They had sent for help, and a large vessel came for 
them the day after Daniel's arrival. Of course he made a 
prize of it. Labat said prayers on board for him before the 
engagement, and the vessel surrendered after the first shot. 
The good humour of the party was not disturbed by this in- 
cident. The pirates, their prisoners, and the ladies stayed 
together for a fortnight at Aves, catching turtles and bou- 
canning them, picnicking, and enjoying themselves. Daniel 
treated the ladies with the utmost politeness, carried them 
afterwards to St. Thomas's, dismissed them unransomed, sold 
his prizes, and wound up the whole affair to the satisfaction 
of every one. Labat relates all this with wonderful humour, 
and tells, among other things, the following story of Daniel. 
On some expedition, when he was not so fortunate as to 
have a priest on board, he was in want of provisions. Being 
an outlaw he could not furnish himself in an open port. One 
night he put into the harbour of a small island, called Los 
Santos, not far from Dominica, where ouly a few families re- 
sided. He sent a boat on shore in the darkness, took the 
priest and two or three of the chief inhabitants out of their 
beds, and carried them on board, where he held them as 
hostages, and then under pretence of compulsion requisitioned 
the island to send him what he wanted. The priest and his 



62 The English in the West Indies. 

companions were treated meanwhile as guests of distinction. 
No violence was necessary, for all parties understood one 
another. While the stores were being collected, Daniel sug- 
gested that there was a good opportunity for his crew to hear 
mass. The priest of Los Santos agreed to say it for them. 
The sacred vessels, &c, were sent for from the church on 
shore. An awning was rigged over the forecastle, and an 
altar set up under it. The men chanted the prayers. The 
cannon answered the purpose of music. Broadsides were 
fired at the first sentence, at the Exaudiat, at the Elevation, at 
the Benediction, and a fifth at the prayer for the king. The 
service was wound up by a Vive le Roi ! A single small ac- 
cident only had disturbed the ceremony. One of the pirates, 
at the Elevation, being of a profane mind, made an indecent 
gesture. Daniel rebuked him, and, as the offence was re- 
peated, drew a pistol and blew the man's brains out, saying 
he would do the same to any one who was disrespectful to the 
Holy Sacrament. The priest being a little startled, Daniel 
begged him not to be alarmed ; he was only chastising a ras- 
cal to teach him his duty. At any rate, as Labat observed, 
he had effectually prevented the rascal from doing anything 
of the same kind again. Mass being over, the body was 
thrown overboard, and priest and congregation went their 
several ways. 

Kingsley's ' At Last ' gave Trinidad an additional interest 
to me, but even he had not prepared me completely for the 
place which I was to see. It is only when one has seen any 
object with one's own eyes, that the accounts given by others 
become recognisable and instructive. 

Trinidad is the largest, after Jamaica, of the British West 
Indian Islands, and the hottest absolutely after none of them. 
It is square-shaped, and, I suppose, was once a part of South 
America. The Orinoco river and the ocean currents between 
them have cut a channel between it and the mainland, which 



Port of Spain. 63 

lias expanded into a vast shallow lake known as the Gulf of 
Paria. The two entrances by which the gulf is approached 
are narrow and are called bocas or mouths — one the Dragon's 
Mouth, the other the Serpent's. When the Orinoco is in 
flood, the water is brackish, and the brilliant violet blue of 
the Caribbean Sea is changed to a dirty yellow ; but the 
harbour which is so formed would hold all the commercial 
uavies of the world, and seems formed by nature to be the 
depot one day of an enormous trade. 

Trinidad has had its period of romance. Columbus was 
the first discoverer of it. Raleigh was there afterwards on 
his expedition in search of his gold mine, and tarred his ves- 
sels with pitch out of the famous lake. The island was alter- 
nately Spanish and French till Picton took it in 1797, since 
which time it has remained English. The Carib part of the 
population has long vanished. The rest of it is a medley of 
English, French, Spaniards, negroes, and coolies. The Eng- 
glish, chiefly migratory, go there to make money and go home 
with it. The old colonial families have few representatives 
left, but the island prospers, trade increases, coolies increase, 
cocoa and coffee plantations and indigo plantations increase. 
Port of Spain, the capital, grows annually ; and even sugar 
holds its own in spite of low prices, for there is money at the 
back of it, and a set of people who, being speculative and 
commercial, are better on a level with the times than the old- 
fashioned planter aristocracy of the other islands. The soil 
is of extreme fertility, about a fourth of it under cultivation, 
the rest natural forest and unappropriated Crown land. 

We passed the ' Dragon's Jaws ' before daylight. The sun 
had just risen when we anchored off Port of Spain. We saw 
before us the usual long line of green hills with mountains 
behind them ; between the hills and the sea was a low, broad, 
alluvial plain, deposited by an arm of the Orinoco and by 
the other rivers which run into the <mlf. The cocoa-nut 



64 The English in the West Indies. 

palms thrive best on the water's edge. They stretched for 
miles on either side of us as a fringe to the shore. Where 
the water was shoal, there were vast swamps of mangrove, 
the lower branches covered with oysters. 

However depressed sugar might be, business could not be 
stagnant. Ships of all nations lay round us taking in or dis- 
charging cargo. I myself formed for the time being part of 

the cargo of my friend and host Mr. G , who had brought 

me to Trinidad, the accomplished son of a brilliant mother, 
himself a distinguished lawyer and member of the executive 
council of the island, a charming companion, an invaluable 
public servant, but with the temperament of a man of genius, 
half humorous, half melancholy, which does not find itself 
entirely at home in West Indian surroundings. 

On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking 
town, 'Port of Spain ' having been built by French and Span- 
iards according to their national tendencies, and especially 
with a view to the temperature, which is that of a forcing 
house, and rarely falls below 80°. The streets are broad and 
are planted with trees for shade, each house where room per- 
mits having a garden of its own, with palms and mangoes 
and coffee plants and creepers. Of sanitary arrangements 
there seemed to be none. There is abundance of rain, and 
the gutters which run down by the footway are flushed al- 
most every day. But they are all open. Dirt of every kind 
lies about freely, to be washed into them or left to putrefy 
as fate shall direct. The smell would not be pleasant with- 
out the help of that natural scavenger the Johnny crow, a 
black vulture who roosts on the trees and feeds in the middle 
of the streets. We passed a dozen of these unclean but use- 
ful birds in a fashionable thoroughfare gobbling up chicken 
entrails and refusing to be disturbed. When gorged they 
perch in rows upon the roofs. On the ground they are the 
nastiest to look at of all winged creatures ; yet on windy days 



A House in the Tropics. 65 

they presume to soar like their kindred, and when far up 
might be taken for eagles. 

The town has between thirty and forty thousand people 
living in it, and the rain and Johnny crows between them 
keep off pestilence. Outside is a large savannah or park, 
where the villas are of the successful men of business. One 
of these belonged to my host, a cool airy habitation with open 
doors and windows, overhanging portico, and rooms into 
which all the winds might enter, but not the sun. A garden 
in front was shut off from the savannah by a fence of ba- 
nanas. At the gate stood as sentinel a cabbage palm a hun- 
dred feet high ; on the lawn mangoes, oranges, papaws, and 
bread-fruit trees, strange to look at, but luxuriantly shady. 
Before the door was a tree of good dimensions, whose name 
I have forgotten, the stem and branches of which were hung 

with orchids which G had collected in the woods. The 

borders were blazing with varieties of the single hibiscus, 
crimson, pink, and fawn colour, the largest that I had ever 
seen. The average diameter of each single flower was from 
seven to eight inches. Wind streamed freely through the 
long sitting room, loaded with the perfume of orange trees ; 
on table and in bookcase the hand and mind visible of a 
gifted and cultivated man. The particular room assigned to 
myself would have been equally delightful, but that my pos- 
session of it was disputed even in daylight by mosquitoes, 
who for bloodthirsty ferocity had a bad pre-eminence over 
the worst that I had ever met with elsewhere. I killed one 
who was at work upon me, and examined him through a 
glass. Bewick, with the inspiration of genius, had drawn his 
exact likeness as the devil — a long black stroke for a bod}', a 
nick for a neck, horns on the head, and a beak for a mouth, 
spindle arms, and longer spindle legs, two pointed wings, and 
a tail. Line for line there the figure was before me which in 
the unforgetable tailpiece is driving the thief under the gal- 



GQ The English in the West Indies. 

lows, and I had a melancholy satisfaction in identifying him. 
I had been warned to be on the lookout for scorpions, centi- 
pedes, jiggers, and land crabs, who w r ould bite me if I 
walked slipperless over the floor in the dark. Of these, I 
met with none, either there or anywhere ; but the mosquito 
of Trinidad is enough by himself. For malice, mockery, 
and venom of tooth and trumpet, he is without a match in 
the world. 

From mosquitoes, however, one could seek safety in to- 
bacco smoke, or hide behind the lace curtains with which 
every bed is provided. Otherwise I found every provision 
to make life pass deliciously. To walk is difficult in a damp 
steamy temperature hotter during daylight than the hottest 
forcing house in Kew. I was warned not to exert myself and 
to take cocktail freely. In the evening I might venture out 
with the bats and take a drive if I wished in the twilight. 
Languidly charming as it all was, I could not help asking 
myself of what use such a possession could be either to Eng- 
land or to the English nation. We could not colonise it, 
could not cultivate it, could not draw a revenue from it. If 
it prospered commercially the prosperity would be of French 
and Spaniards, mulattoes and blacks, but scarcely, if at all, 
of my own countrymen. For here too, as elsewhere, they 
were growing fewer daily, and those who remained were 
looking forward to the day when they could be released. 
If it were not for the honour of the thing, as the Irish- 
man said after being carried in a sedan chair which had no 
bottom, we might have spared ourselves so unnecessary a 
conquest. 

Beautiful, however, it was beyond dispute. Before sunset 
a carriage took us round the savannah. Tropical human 
beings like tropical birds are fond of fine colours, especially 
black human beings, and the park was as brilliant as Ken- 
sington Gardens on a Sundav. At nightfall the scene became 



Politics in Trinidad. 67 

yet more wonderful ; air, grass, and trees being alight with 
fireflies each as brilliant as an English glowworm. The palm 
tree at our own gate stood like a ghostly sentinel clear against 
the starry sky, a single long dead frond hanging from below 
the coronet of leaves and clashing against the stem as it was 
blown to and fro by the night wind, while long-winged bats 
swept and whistled over our heads. 

The commonplace intrudes upon the imaginative. At mo- 
ments one can fancy that the world is an enchanted place 
after all, but then comes generally an absurd awakening. On 
the first night of my arrival, before we went to bed there came 
an invitation to me to attend a political meeting which was to 
be held in a few days on the savannah. Trinidad is a purely 
Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the introduction of 
the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy gentle- 
men in ' Port of Spain ' had discovered that they were living 
under 'a degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a ' consti- 
tion.' They did not complain that their affairs had been ill- 
managed. On the contrary, they insisted that they were the 
most prosperous of the "West Indian colonies, and alone had 
a surplus in their treasury. If this was so, it seemed to me 
that they had better let well alone. The population, all told, 
was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand than that of Barba- 
does. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of all races 
and colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never hith- 
erto troubling themselves about politics. But it had pleased 
the Home Government to set up the beginning of a constitu- 
tion again in Jamaica, no one knew why, but so it was, and 
Trinidad did not choose to be behindhand. The official ap- 
pointments were valuable, and had been hitherto given away 
by the Crown. The local popularities very naturally wished 
to have them for themselves. This was the reality in the 
thing so far as there was a reality. It Avas dressed up in the 
phrases borrowed from the great English masters of the art, 



68 The English in the West Indies. 

about privileges of manhood, moral dignity, the elevating in- 
fluence of the suffrage, &c, intended for home consumption 
among the believers in the orthodox Radical faith. 

For myself I could but reply to the gentlemen who had 
sent the invitation, that I was greatly obliged by the compli- 
ment, but that I knew too little of their affairs to make my 
presence of any value to them. As they were doing so well, 
I did not see myself why they wanted an alteration. Politi- 
cal changes were generally little more than turns of a kaleido- 
scope ; you got a new pattern but it was made of the same 
pieces, and things went on much as before. If they wanted 
political liberty I did not doubt that they would get it if they 
were loud and persistent enough. Only they must under- 
stand that at home Ave were now a democracy. Any consti- 
tution which was granted them would be on the widest basis. 
The blacks and coolies outnumbered the Europeans by four 
to one, and perhaps when they had what they asked for they 
might be less pleased than they expected. 

You rise early in the tropics. The first two hours of day- 
light are the best of the day. My friend drove me round the 
town in his buggy the next morning. My second duty was 
to pay my respects to the Governor, Sir William Robinson, 
who had kindly offered me hospitality, and for which I must 
present myself to thank him. In Sir William I found one of 
those happy men whose constitution is superior to climate, 
who can do a long day's work in his office, play cricket or 
lawn tennis in the afternoon, and entertain his miscellaneous 
subjects in the evening with sumptuous hospitality — a vigor- 
orous, effective, perhaps ambitious gentleman, with a clear eye 
to the views of his employers at home on whom his promo- 
tion depends— certain to make himself agreeable to them, 
likely to leave his mark to useful purpose on the colonies over 
which he presides or may preside hereafter. Here in Trini- 
dad he was learning Spanish in addition to his other Unguis- 



Government House and Gardens. 69 

tic accomplishments, that he might show proper courtesies 
to Spanish residents and to visitors from South America. 

The ' Eesidence ' stands in a fine situation, in large grounds 
of its own at the foot of the mountains. It has been lately 
built regardless of expense, for the colony is rich, and likes 
to do things handsomely. On the lawn, under the windows, 
stood a tree which was entirely new to me, an enormous ceiba 
or silk cotton tree, umbrella shaped, fifty yards in diameter, 
the huge and buttressed trunk throwing out branches so mas- 
sive that one wondered how any woody fibre could bear the 
strain of their weight, the boughs twisting in and out till 
they made a roof over one's head, which was hung with 
every fantastic variety of parasites. 

Vast as the ceibas were which I saw afterwards in other 
parts of the West Indies, this was the largest. The ceiba is 
the sacred tree of the negro, the temple of Jumbi the proper 
home of Obeah. To cut one down is impious. No black in 
his right mind would wound even the bark. A Jamaica po- 
lice officer told me that if a ceiba had to be removed, the 
men who used the axe were well dosed with rum to give them 
courage to defy the devil. 

From Government House we strolled into the adjoining- 
Botanical Gardens. I had long heard of the wonders of 
these. The reality went beyond description. Plants with 
which I was familiar as shrubs in English conservatories were 
here expanded into forest giants, with hundreds of others of 
which we cannot raise even Lilliputian imitations. Let man 
be what he will, nature in the tropics is always grand. 
Palms were growing in the greatest luxuriance, of every 
known species, from the cabbage towering up into the sky 
to the fan palm of the desert whose fronds are reservoirs of 
water. Of exogenous trees, the majority were leguminous 
in some shape or other, forming flowers like a pea or vetch 
and hanging their seed in pods ; yet in shape and foliage 



70 The English in the West Indies. 

they distanced far the most splendid ornaments of an English 
park. They had Old World names with characters wholly 
different : cedars which were not conifers, almonds which 
were no relations to peaches, and gum trees as unlike euca- 
lypti as one tree can be unlike another. Again, you saw 
forms which you seemed to recognise till some unexpected 
anomaly startled you out of your mistake. A gigantic Portu- 
gal laurel, or what I took for such, was throwing out a flower 
direct from the stem like a cactus. Grandest among them 
all, and happily in full bloom, was the sacred tree of Bur- 
mah, the Amherstia nobilis, at a distance like a splendid horse- 
chestnut, with crimson blossoms in pendant bunches, each 
separate flower in the convolution of its parts exactly coun- 
terfeiting a large orchid, with which it has not the faintest 
affinity, the Amherstia being leguminous like the rest. 

Underneath, and dispersed among the imperial beauties, 
were spice trees, orange trees, coffee plants and cocoa, or 
again, shrubs with special virtues or vices. We had to be 
careful what we were about, for fruits of fairest appearance 
were tempting us all round. My companion was preparing 
to eat something to encourage me to do the same. A gar- 
dener stopped him in time. It was nux vomica. I was stray- 
ing along a less frequented path, conscious of a heavy vapor- 
ous odour, in which I might have fainted had I remained ex- 
posed to it. I was close to a manchineel tree. 

Prettiest and freshest were the nutmegs, which had a glen 
all to themselves and perfumed the surrounding air. In 
Trinidad and in Grenada I believe the nutmegs are the lar- 
gest that are known, being from thirty to forty feet high ; 
leaves brilliant green, something like the leaves of an orange, 
but extremely delicate and thin, folded one over the other, 
the lowest branches sweeping to the ground till the whole 
tree forms a natural bower, which is proof against a tropical 
shower. The fragrance attracts moths and flies ; not mos- 



A Remarkable Vine. 71 

quitoes, who prefer a ranker atmosphere. I saw a pair of 
butterflies the match of which I do not remember even in 
any museum, dark blue shot with green like a peacock's 
neck, and the size of English bats. I asked a black boy to 
catch me one. ' That sort no let catchee, massa,' he said ; 
and I was penitently glad to hear it. 

Among the Avonders of the gardens are the vines as they 
call them, that is, the creepers of various kinds that climb 
about the other trees. Standing in an open space there was 
what once had been a mighty ' cedar.' It was now dead, only 
the trunk and dead branches remaining, and had been mur- 
dered by a ' fig ' vine which had started from the root, twined 
itself like a python round the stem, strangled out the natural 
life, and spreading out in all directions had covered boughs 
and twigs with a foliage not its own. So far the ' vine ' had 
done no worse than ivy does at home, but there was one feat- 
ure about it which puzzled me altogether. The lowest of the 
original branches of the cedar were about twenty feet above 
our heads. From these in four or five places the parasite had 
let fall shoots, perhaps an inch in diameter, which descended 
to within a foot of the grouucl and then suddenly, without 
touching that or anything, formed a bight like a rope, went 
straight up again, caught hold of the branch from which they 
started, and so hung suspended exactly as an ordinary swing. 
In three distinctly perfect instances the ' vine ' had executed 
this singular evolution, while at the extremity of one of the 
longest and tallest branches high up in the air it had made a 
clean leap of fifteen feet without visible help and had caught 
hold of another tree adjoining on the same level. These per- 
formances were so inexplicable that I conceived that they 
must have been a freak of the gardener's. I was mistaken. 
He said that at particular times in the year the fig vine threw 
out fine tendrils which hung downwards like strings. The 
strongest among them would lay hold of two or three others 



72 The English in the West Indies. 

and climb up upon them, the rest would die and drop off, 
while the successful one, having found support for itself 
above, would remain swinging in the air and thicken and 
prosper. The leap he explained by the wind. I retained a 
suspicion that the wind had been assisted by some aspiring 
energy in the plant itself, so bold it was and so ambitious. 

But the wonders of the garden were thrown into the shade 
by the cottage at the extreme angle of it (the old Government- 
House before the present fabric had been erected), where 
Kingsley had been the guest of Sir Arthur Gordon. It is a 
long straggling wooden building with deep verandahs lying- 
in a hollow overshadowed by trees, with views opening out 
into the savannah through arches formed by clumps of tall 
bamboos, the canes growing thick in circular masses and 
shooting up a hundred feet into the air, where they meet and 
form frames for the landscape, peculiar and even picturesque 
when there are not too many of them. These bamboos were 
Kingsley's special delight, as he had never seen the like of 
them elsewhere. The room in which he wrote is still shown, 
and the gallery where he walked up and down with his long- 
pipe. His memory is cherished in the island as of some sin- 
gular and beautiful presence which still hovers about the 
scenes which so delighted him in the closing evening of his 
own life. 

It was the dry season, midwinter, yet raining every day for 
two or three hours, and when it rains in these countries it 
means business. When the sky cleared the sun was intoler- 
ably hot, and distant expeditions under such conditions suited 
neither my age nor my health. With cocktail I might have 
ventured, but to cocktail I could never heartily reconcile my- 
self. Trinidad has one wonder in it, a lake of bitumen some 
ninety acres in extent, which all travellers are expected to 
visit, and which few residents care to visit. A black lake is 
not so beautiful as an ordinary lake. I had no doubt that it 



Negroes and Coolies. 73 

existed, for the testimony was unimpeachable. Indeed I was 
shown an actual specimen of the crystallized pitch itself. I 
could believe without seeing and without undertaking a tedi- 
ous journey. I rather sympathised with a noble lord who 
came to Port of Sjjain in his yacht, and like myself had the 
lake impressed upon him. As a middle course between go- 
ing thither and appearing to slight his friends' recommenda- 
tions, he said that he would send his steward. 

In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was 
to see the human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, 
how they were living, and what they were thinking about, 
and this could best be done by drives about the town and 
neighbourhood. The cultivated land is a mere fringe round 
the edges of the forest. Three-fourths of the soil are un- 
touched. The rivers running out of the mountains have 
carved out the usual long deep valleys, and spread the bot- 
toms with rich alluvial soil. Here among the wooded slopes 
are the country houses of the merchants. Here are the 
cabins of the black peasantry with their cocoa and coffee and 
orange plantations, which as in Grenada they hold largely as 
freeholds, reproducing as near as possible the life in Paradise 
of our first parents, without the consciousness of a want which 
they are unable to gratify, not compelled to work, for the 
earth of her own self bears for them all that they need, and 
ignorant that there is any difference between moral good 
and evil. 

Large sugar estates, of course, there still are, and as the 
owners have not succeeded in bringing the negroes to work 
regularly for them,' they have introduced a few thousand 
coolies under indentures for five years. These Asiatic im- 
portations are very happy in Trinidad ; they save money, and 

1 The negroes in the interior are beginning to cultivate sugar cane in 
small patches, with common mills to break it up. If the experiment suc- 
ceeds it may extend. 



74 The English in the West Indies. 

many of them do not return home when their time is out, but 
stay where they are, buy land, or go into trade. They are 
proud, however, and will not intermarry with the Africans. 
Few bring their families with them ; and women being scanty 
among them, there arise inconveniences and sometimes se- 
rious crimes. 

It were to be wished that there was more prospect of the 
race becoming permanent than I fear there is. They work 
excellently. They are picturesque additions to the landscape, 
as they keep to the bright colours and graceful drapery of 
India. The grave dignity of their faces contrasts remarkably 
with the broad, good-humoured, but common features of the 
African. The black women look with envy at the straight 
hair of Asia, and twist their unhappy wool into knots and 
ropes in the vain hoj)e of being mistaken for the purer race ; 
but this is all. The African and the Asiatic will not mix, 
and the African being the stronger will and must prevail in 
Trinidad as elsewhere in the West Indies. Out of a total 
population of 170,000, there are 25,000 whites and mulattoes, 
10,000 coolies, the rest negroes. The English part of the 
Europeans shows no tendency to increase. The English 
come as birds of passage, and depart when they have made 
their fortunes. The French and Spaniards may hold on to 
Trinidad as a home. Our people do not make homes there., 
and must be looked on as a transient element. 



CHAPTER VH. 

A coolie village — Negro freeholds— Waterworks — Pythons— Slavery — 
Evidence of Lord Rodney — Future of the negroes — Necessity of 
English rale — The Blue Basin— Black boy and crayfish. 

The second morning after my arrival, my host took me to a 
coolie village three miles beyond the town. The drive was 
between spreading cane fields, beneath the shade of bamboos, 
or under rows of cocoa-nut palms, between the steins of which 
the sun was gleaming. 

Human dwelling-places are rarely interesting in the tropics. 
A roof which will keep the rain out is all that is needed. The 
more free the passage given to the air under the floor and 
through the side, the more healthy the habitation ; and the 
houses, when we came among them, seemed merely enlarged 
packing cases loosely nailed together and raised on stones a 
foot or two from the ground. The rest of the scene was pic- 
turesque enough. The Indian jewellers were sitting cross- 
legged before their charcoal pans, making silver bracelets and 
earrings. Brilliant garments, crimson and blue and orange, 
were hanging to dry on clothes lines. Men were going out 
to their work, women cooking, children (not many) playing 
or munching sugar cane, while great mango trees and ceibas 
spread a cool green roof over all. Like Rachel, the coolies 
had brought their gods to their new home. In the centre of 
the village was a Hindoo temple, made up rudely o\it of 
boards with a verandah running round it. The doors were 
locked. An old man who had charge told us we could not 
enter ; a crowd, suspicious and sullen, gathered about us a3 



76 The English in the West Indies. 

we tried to prevail upon Lira. So we had to content our- 
selves with the outside, which was gaudily and not unskilfully 
painted in Indian fashion. There were gods and goddesses 
in various attitudes ; Vishnu fighting with the monkey god, 
Vishnu with cutlass and shield, the monkey with his tail 
round one tree while he brandished two others, one in each 
hand, as clubs. I suppose that we smiled, for our curiosity 
was resented, and we found it prudent to withdraw. 

The coolies are useful creatures. Without them sugar 
cultivation in Trinidad and Demerara would cease altogether. 
They are useful and they are singularly ornamental. Unfor- 
tunately they have not the best character with the police. 
There is little crime among the negroes, who quarrel furi- 
ously but with their tongues only. The coolies have the 
fiercer passions of their Eastern blood. Their women being 
few are tempted occasionally into infidelities, and would be 
tempted more often but that a lapse in virtue is so fearfully 
avenged. A coolie regards his wife as his property, and if 
she is unfaithful to him he kills her without the least hesita- 
tion. One of the judges told me that he had tried a case of 
this kind, and could not make the man understand that he 
had done anything wrong. It is a pity that a closer inter- 
mixture between them and the negroes seems so hopeless, 
for it would solve many difficulties. There is no jealousy. 
The negro does not regard the coolie as a competitor and in- 
terloper who has come to lower his wages. The coolie comes 
to work. The negro does not want to work, and both are 
satisfied. But if there is no jealousy there is no friendship. 
The two races are more absolutely apart than the white and 
the black. The Asiatic insists the more on his superiority in 
the fear perhaps that if he did not the white might forget it. 

Among the sights in the neighbourhood of Port of Spain 
are the waterworks, extensive basins and reservoirs a few 
miles off in the hills. We chose a cool afternoon, when the 



Negro Freeholds. 77 

temperature in the shade was not above 86°, and went to 
look at them. It was my first sight of the interior of the 
island, and my first distinct acquaintance with the change 
which had come over the West Indies. Trinidad is not one 
of our oldest possessions, but we had held it long enough for 
the old planter civilisation to take root and grow, and our 
road led us through jungles of flowering shrubs which were 
running wild over what had been once cultivated estates. 
Stranger still (for one associates colonial life instinctively 
with what is new and modern), we came at one place on an 
avenue of vast trees, at the end of which stood the ruins of 
a mansion of some gi*eat man of the departed order. Great 
man he must have been, for there was a gateway half 
crumbled away on which were his crest and shield in stone, 
with supporters on either side, like the Baron of Bradwar- 
dine's Bears ; fallen now like them, but unlike them never, 
I fear, to be set up again. The Anglo- West Indians, like the 
English gentry in Ireland, were a fine race of men in their 
day, and perhaps the improving them off the earth has been 
a less beneficial process in either case than we are in the 
habit of supposing. 

Entering among the hills we came on their successors. In 
Trinidad there are 18,000 freeholders, most of them negroes 
and representatives of the old slaves. Their cabins are 
spread along the road on either side, overhung with bread- 
fruit trees, tamarinds, calabash treeSi out of which they make 
their cups and water jugs ; the luscious granadilla climbs 
among the branches ; plantains throw their cool shade over 
the doors ; oranges and limes and citrons perfume the air, 
and droop their boughs under the weight of their golden 
burdens. There were yams in the gardens and cows in the 
paddocks, and cocoa bushes loaded with purple or yellow 
pods. Children played about in swarms, in happy idleness 
and abundance, with schools, too, at intervals, and an occa- 



78 The English in the West Indies. 

sional Catholic chapel, for the old religion prevails in Trini- 
dad, never having been disturbed. What form could human 
life assume more charming than that which we were now 
looking on? Once more, the earth does not contain any 
peasantry so well off, so well cared for, so happy, so sleek 
and contented as the sons and daughters of the emancipated 
slaves in the English West Indian Islands. Sugar may fail 
the planter, but cocoa, which each peasant can grow with 
small effort for himself, does not fail and will not. He may 
' better his condition,' if he has any such ambition, without 
stirring beyond his own ground, and so far, perhaps, his am- 
bition may extend, if it is not turned off upon politics. 
Even the necessary evils of the tropics are not many or seri- 
ous. His skin is proof against mosquitoes. There are snakes 
in Trinidad as there were snakes in Eden. ' Plenty snakes,' 
said one of them who was at work in his garden, ' plenty 
snakes, but no bitee.' As to costume, he would prefer the 
costume of innocence if he was allowed. Clothes in such a 
climate are superfluous for warmth, and to the minds of 
the negroes, unconscious as they are of shame, superfluous 
for decency. European prejudice, however, still passes for 
something ; the women have a love for finery, which would 
prevent a complete return to African simplicity ; and in the 
islands which are still French, and in those like Trinidad, 
which the French originally colonised, they dress themselves 
with real taste. They hide their wool in red or yellow hand- 
kerchiefs, gracefully twisted ; or perhaps it is not only to 
conceal the wool. Columbus found the Carib women of the 
island dressing their hair in the same fashion. 1 

The waterworks, when we reached them, were even more 
beautiful than we had been taught to expect. A dam has 
been driven across a perfectly limpid mountain stream ; a 

1 Traen las cabezas atadas con unos panuelos labrados hermosos que 
parecen de lejos d« seda y almazarrones. 



The Waterworks of Port of Spain. 79 

wide open area has been cleared, levelled, strengthened with 
masonry, and divided into deep basins or reservoirs, through 
which the current continually flows. Hedges of hibiscus 
shine with crimson blossoms. Innumerable humming birds 
glance to and fro among the trees and shrubs, and gardens 
and ponds are overhung by magnificent bamboos, which so 
astonished me by their size that I inquired if their height 
had been measured. One of them, I was told, had lately 
fallen, and was found to be 130 feet long. A single draw- 
back only there was to this enchanting spot, and it was again 
the snakes. There are huge pythons in Trinidad which are 
supposed to have crossed the straits from the continent. 
The cool water pools attract them, and they are seen occa- 
sionally coiled among the branches of the bamboos. Some 
washerwomen at work in the stream had been disturbed a 
few days before our visit by one of these monsters, who had 
come down to see what they were about. They are harm- 
less, but trying to the nerves. One of the men about the 
place shot this one, and he told me that he had shot another 
a short time before asleep in a tree. The keeper of the 
works was a retired soldier, an Irish-Scot from Limerick, 
hale, vigorous, and happy as the blacks themselves. He had 
married one of them — a remarkable exception to an almost 
universal rule. He did not introduce us, but the dark lady 
passed by us in gorgeous costume, just noticing our presence 
with a sweep which would have done credit to a duchess. 

We made several similar small expeditions into the settled 
parts of the neighbourhood, seeing always (whatever else we 
saw) the boundless happiness of the black race. Under the 
rule of England in these islands the two million of these poor 
brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented 
specimens of the human race to be found upon the planet. 
Even Schopenhauer, could he have known them, would have 
admitted that there were some of us who were not hopelessly 



80 The English in the West Indies. 

wretched. If happiness be the satisfaction of every conscious 
desire, theirs is a condition which admits of no improve- 
ment : were they independent, they might quarrel among 
themselves, and the weaker become the bondmen of the 
stronger ; under the beneficent despotism of the English 
Government, which knows no difference of colour and permits 
no oppression, they can sleep, lounge, and laugh away their 
lives as they please, fearing no danger. If they want money, 
work and wages are waiting for them. No one can say what 
may be before them hereafter. The powers which envy hu- 
man beings too perfect felicity may find ways one day of dis- 
turbing the West Indian negro ; but so long as the English 
rule continues, he may be assured of the same tranquil exist- 
ence. 

As life goes he has been a lucky mortal. He was taken 
away from Dahomey and Ashantee — to be a slave indeed, but 
a slave to a less cruel master than he would have found at 
home. He had a bad time of it occasionally, and the planta- 
tion whip and the branding irons are not all dreams, yet his 
owner cared for him at least as much as he cared for his 
cows and his horses. Kind usage to animals is more econ- 
omical than barbarity, and Englishmen in the West Indies 
were rarely inhuman. Lord Rodney says : ' I have been 
often in all the West India Islands, and I have often made my 
observations on the treatment of the negro slaves, and can 
aver that I never knew the least cruelty inflicted on them, but 
that in general they lived better than the honest day-labouring 
man in England, without doing a fourth part of his work in 
a day, and I am fully convinced that the negroes in our isl- 
ands are better provided for and live better than when in 
Guinea.' Rodney, it is true, was a man of facts and was 
defective in sentiment. Let us suppose him wrong, let us 
believe the worst horrors of the slave trade or slave usage as 
fluent tongue of missionary or demagogue has described 



English Rule and the Negroes. 81 

them, yet nevertheless, when we consider what the lot of 
common humanity has been and is, we shall be dishonest if 
we deny that the balance has been more than redressed ; 
and the negroes who were taken away out of Africa, as 
compared with those who were left at home, were as the 
'elect to salvation,' who after a brief purgatory are secured 
an eternity of blessedness. The one condition is the main- 
tenance of' the authority of the English crown. The whites 
of the islands cannot equitably rule them. They have not 
shaken off the old traditions. If, for the sake of theory 
or to shirk responsibility, we force them to govern them- 
selves, the state of Hayti stands as a ghastly example of the 
condition into which they will then inevitably fall. If we 
persist, we shall be sinning against light — the clearest light 
that was ever given in such affairs. The most hardened be- 
liever in the regenerating effects of political liberty cannot 
be completely blind to the ruin which the infliction of it 
would necessarily bring upon the race for whose interests 
they pretend particularly to care. 

The Pitch Lake I resisted all exhortations to visit, but the 
clays in the forest were delightful — pre-eminently a day 
which we spent at the ' Blue Basin,' a pool scooped out in the 
course of ages by a river falling through a mountain gorge ; 
blue, not from any colour in the water, which is purely trans- 
parent, but from a peculiar effect of sky reflection through 
an opening in the overhanging trees. As it was far off, we 
had to start early and encounter the noonday heat. "We had 
to close the curtains of the carriage to escape the sun, and in 
losing the sun we shut out the wind. All was well, however, 
when we turned into the hills. Thenceforward the road fol- 
lowed the bottom of a densely wooded ravine ; impenetrable 
foliage spreading over our heads, and a limpid river flashing 
along in which our horses cooled their feet and lips as we 
crossed it again and again. There were the usual cabins and 
G 



82 The English in the West Indies. 

gardens on either side of us, sometimes single, sometimes 
clustering into villages, and high above them the rocks stood 
out, broken into precipices or jutting out into projecting 
crags, with huge trees starting from the crevices, dead trunks 
with branching arms clothed scantily with creepers, or liv- 
ing giants with blue or orange-coloured flowers. Mangoes 
scented the valley with their blossom. Bananas waved their 
long broad leaves — some flat and unbroken as we know them 
in conservatories, some split into palm-like fronds which 
quivered in the breeze. The cocoa pods were ripe or ripen- 
ing, those which had been gathered being left on the ground 
in heaps as we see apples in autumn in an English orchard. 

We passed a lady on the way who was making sketches and 
daring the mosquitoes, that were feeding at leisure upon her 
face and arms. The road failed us at last. We alighted 
with our waterproof s and luncheon basket. A couple of half- 
naked boys sprang forward to act as guides and porters — ■ 
nice little fellows, speaking a French patois for their natural 
language, but with English enough to eai*n shillings and 
amuse the British tourist. With their help we scrambled 
along a steep slippery path, the river roaring below, till we 
came to a spot where, the rock being soft, a waterfall had 
cut out in the course of ages a natural hollow, of which the 
trees formed the roof, and of which the floor was the pool we 
had come in search of. The fall itself was perpendicular, and 
fifty or sixty feet high, the water issuing at the top out of 
a dark green tunnel among overhanging branches. The sides 
of the basin were draped with the fronds of gigantic ferns 
and wild plantains, all in wild luxuriance and dripping with 
the spray. In clefts above the rocks, large cedars or gum 
trees had struck their roots and flung out their smarled and 
twisted branches, which were hung with fern ; while at the 
lower end of the pool, where the river left it again, there 
grew out from among the rocks near the water's edge tall 




BLUE BASIN, TRINIDAD. 



The Blue Basin. S3 

and exquisitely grouped acacias with, crimson flowers for 
leaves. 

The place broke on us suddenly as we scrambled round 
a corner from below. Three young blacks were bathing in 
the pool, and as we had a lady with us, they were induced, 
though sullenly and with some difficulty, to return into their 
scanty garments and depart. Never certainly was there a 
more inviting spot to swim in, the more so from exciting 
possibilities of adventure. An English gentleman went to 
bathe there shortly before our coming. He was on a rock, 
swaying his body for a plunge, when something caught his 
eye among the shadows at the bottom. It proved to be a 
large dead python. 

"We had not the luck ourselves of falling in with so inter- 
esting a beast. Great butterflies and perhaps a humming 
bird or two were flitting among the leaves as we came up ; 
other signs of life there were none, unless we call life the mo- 
tion of the plantain leaves, waving in the draughts of air 
which were eddying round the waterfall. We sat down on 
stones, or on the trunk of a fallen tree, the mosquitoes merci- 
fully sparing us. We sketched a little, talked a little, ate our 
sandwiches, and the male part of us lighted our cigars. G 

then, to my surprise, produced a fly rod. In the streams 

in the Antilles, which run out of the mountains, there is a fish 
in great abundance which they call mullet, an inferior trout, 
but a good substitute where the real thiug is not. He runs 
sometimes to five pounds weight, will take the fly, and is much 
sought after by those who try to preserve in the tropics the 

amusements and habits of home. G had caught many 

of them in Dominica. If in Dominica, why not in Trini- 
dad ? 

He put his tackle together, tied up a cast of trout flies, 
and commenced work. He tried the still water at the lower 
end of the basin. He crept round the rock and dropped his 



Si The English in the West Indies. 

line into the foam at the foot of the fall. No mullet rose, 
nor fish of any kind. One of our small boys had looked on 
with evident impatience. He cried out at last, ' No mullet, 
but plenty crayfish,' pointing down into the water ; and there, 
following the direction of his finger, we beheld strange grey 
creatures, like cuttle-fish moving about on the points of their 
toes, the size of small lobsters. The flies were dismounted, 
a bare hook was fitted on a fine gut trace, with a split shot 
or two to sink the line, all trim and excellent. A fresh- 
water shrimp was caught under a stone for a bait. G 

went to work, and the strange things took hold and let them- 
selves be lifted halfway to the surface. But then, somehow, 
they let go and disappeared. 

Our small boy said nothing ; but I saw a scornful smile 
upon his lips. He picked up a thin dry cane, found some 
twine in the luncheon basket which had tied up our sand- 
wiches, found a pin there also, and bent it, and put a shrimp 
on it. With a pebble stone for a sinker he started in compe- 
tition, and in a minute he had brought out upon the rock 
the strangest thing in the shape of a fish which I had ever 
seen in fresh water or salt. It was a true ' crayfish, ecrevisse, 
eight inches long, formed regularly with the thick powerful 
tail, the sharp serrated suout, the long antennae, and the 
spider-like legs of the lobster tribe. As in a crayfish, the 
claws were represented by the correctly shaped but diminu- 
tive substitutes. 

When we had done wondering at the prize, We could ad- 
mire the smile of conscious superiority in the face of the 
captor. The fine tackle had been beaten, as usual, by the 
proverbial string and crooked pin, backed by knowledge in 
the head of a small nigger boy. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Home Rule in Trinidad — Political aspirations— Nature of the problem — 
Crown administration — Colonial governors— A Russian apologue — 
Dinner at Government House— 'The Three Fishers' — Charles War- 
ner — Alternative futures of the colony. 

The political demonstration to which I had been invited came 
off the next day on the savannah. The scene was pretty 
enough. Black coats and white trousers, bright-coloured 
dresses and pink parasols, look the same at a distance whether 
the wearer has a black face or a white one, and the broad 
meadow was covered over with sparkling groups. Several 
thousand persons must have attended, not all to hear the ora- 
tory, for the occasion had been taken when the Governor was 
to play close by in a cricket match, and half the crowd had 
probably collected to see His Excellency at the wicket. 
Placards had been posted about the town, setting out the 
purpose of the meeting. Trinidad, as I said, is at present a 
Crown colony, the executive council and the legislature being 
equally nominated by the authorities. The popular orators, 
the newspaper writers, and some of the leading merchants 
in Port of Spain had discovered, as I said, that they were 
living under what they called ' a degrading tyranny' They 
had no grievances, or none that they alleged, beyond the 
general one that they had no control over the finance. They 
very naturally desired that the lucrative Government appoint- 
ments for which the colony paid should be distributed among 
themselves. The elective principle had been reintroduced in 
Jamaica, evidently as a step towards the restoration of the 



80 The English in the West Indies. 

full constitution which had been surrendered and suppressed 
after the Gordon riots. Trinidad was almost as large as 
Jamaica, in proportion to the population wealthier and more 
prosperous, and the people were invited to come together in 
overwhelming numbers to insist that the ' tyranny ' should 
end. The Home Government in their action about Jamaica 
had shown a spontaneous readiness to transfer responsibility 
from themselves to the inhabitants. The promoters of the 
meeting at Port of Spain may have thought that a little press- 
ure on their j:>art might not be unwelcome as an excuse for 
further concessions of the same kind. Whether this was so 
I do not know. At any rate they showed that they were as 
yet novices in the art of agitation. The language of the 
placard of invitation was so violent that, in the opinion of the 
legal authorities, the printer might have been indicted for 
high treason. The speakers did their best to imitate the fine 
phrases of the apostles of liberty in Europe, but they suc- 
ceeded only in caricaturing their absurdities. The proceed- 
ings were described at length in the rival newspapers. One 
gentleman's speech was said to have been so brilliant that 
every sentence was a ' gem of oratory,' the gem of gems being 
when he told his hearers that, ' if they went into the thing 
at all, they should go the entire animal.' All went off good- 
humouredly. In the Liberal journal the event of the day was 
spoken of as the most magnificent demonstration in favour 
of human freedom which had ever been seen in the West 
Indian Islands. In the Conservative journal it was called a 
ridiculous fiasco, and the people were said to have come to- 
gether only to admire the Governor's batting, and to laugh 
at the nonsense which was coming from the platform. Fi- 
nally, the same journal assured us that, beyond a handful of 
people who were interested in getting hold of the anticipated 
spoils of office, no one in the island cared about the matter. 
The result, I believe, was some petition or other which 



Colonial Self- Government. 87 

would go home and pass as evidence, to minds eager to be- 
lieve, that Trinidad was rapidly ripening for responsible 
government, promising relief to an overburdened Secretary 
for the Colonies, who has more to do than he can attend to, 
and is pleased with opportunities of gratifying popular senti- 
ment, or of showing off in Parliament the development of 
colonial institutions. He knows nothing, ,can know nothing, 
of the special conditions of our hundred dependencies. He 
accepts what his representatives in the several colonies choose 
to tell him ; and his representatives, being birds of passage 
responsible only to their employers at home, and depending 
for their promotion on making themselves agreeable, are un- 
der irresistible temptations to report what it will please the 
Secretary of State to hear. 

For the Secretary of State, too, is a bird of passage as they 
are, passing through the Colonial Office on his way to other 
departments, or holding the seals as part of an administration 
whose tenure of office grows every year more precarious, 
which exists only upon popular sentiment, and cannot, and 
does not, try to look forward beyond at furthest the next 
session of Parliament. 

But why, it may be asked, should not Trinidad govern 
itself as well as Tasmania or New Zealand ? Why not 
Jamaica, why not all the West Indian Islands? I will answer 
by another question. Do we wish these islands to remain 
as part of the British Empire ? Are they of any use to us, 
or have we responsibilities connected with them of which we 
are not entitled to divest ourselves ? A government elected 
by the majority of the people (and no one would think of 
setting up constitutions on any other basis) reflects from tho 
nature of things the character of the electors. All theso 
islands tend to become partitioned into black peasant pro- 
prietaries. In Grenada the process is almost complete. In 
Trinidad it is rapidly advancing. No one can stop it. No 



8S The English in the West Indies. 

one ought to wish to stop it. But the ownership of freeholds 
is one thing, and political power is another. The blacks de- 
pend for the progress which they may be capable of making 
on the presence of a white community among them ; and al- 
though it is undesirable or impossible for the blacks to be 
ruled by the minority of the white residents, it is equally un- 
desirable and equally impossible that the whites should be 
ruled by them. The relative numbers of the two races being 
what they are, responsible government in Trinidad means 
government by a black parliament and a black ministry. The 
negro voters might elect, to begin with, their half-caste attor- 
neys or such whites (the most disreputable of their colour) as 
would court their suffrages. But the black does not love the 
mulatto, and despises the white man who consents to be his 
servant. He has no grievances. He is not naturally a poli- 
tician, and if left alone with his own patch of land, will never 
trouble himself to look further. But he knows what has 
happened in St. Domingo. He has heard that his race is al- 
ready in full possession of the finest of all the islands. If he 
has any thought or any hopes about the matter, it is that it 
may be with the rest of them as it has been with St. Domingo, 
and if you force the power into his hands, you must expect 
him to use it. Under the constitution which you would set 
up, whites and blacks may be nominally equal ; but from the 
enormous preponderance of numbers the equality would be 
only in name, and such English people, at least, as would be 
really of any value, would refuse to remain in a false and in- 
tolerable position. Already the English population of Trini- 
dad is dwindling away under the uncertainties of their future 
position. Complete the work, set up a constitution with a 
black prime minister and a black legislature, and they will 
withdraw of themselves before they are compelled to go. 
Spaniards and French might be tempted by advantages of 
trade to remain in Port of Spain, as a few are still to be found 



Colonial Self- Government 89 

in Hayti. The} 7 , it is possible, might in time recover and re- 
assert their supremacy. Englishmen have the world open to 
them, and will prefer lands where they can live under less 
degrading conditions. In Hayti the black republic allows no 
white man to hold land in freehold. The blacks elsewhere 
with the same opportunities will develop the same aspira- 
tions. 

Do we, or do we not, intend to retain our "West Indian 
Islands under the sovereignty of the Queen ? If we are will- 
ing to let them go, the question is settled. But we ought to 
face the alternative. There is but one form of government 
under which we can retain these colonies with honour and 
security to ourselves and with advantage to the negroes 
whom we have placed there — the mode of government which 
succeeds with us so admirably that it is the world's wonder 
in the East Indies, a success so unique and so extraordinary 
that it seems the last from which we are willing to take ex- 
ample. 

In Natal, where the circumstances are analogous, and 
where report says that efforts are being also made to force 
on constitutional independence, I remember suggesting a 
few years ago that the governor should be allowed to form 
his own council, and that in selecting the members of it he 
should go round the colony, observe the farms where the 
land was well inclosed, the fields clean, the farm buildings 
substantial and in good repair ; that he should call on the 
owners of these to be his advisers and assistants. In all 
Natal he might find a dozen such. They would be unwilling 
to leave their own business for so thankless a purpose ; but 
they might be induced by good feeling to grant him a few 
weeks of their time. Under such an administration I imagine 
Natal would have a happier future before it than it will ex- 
perience with the boon which is designed for it. 

In the West Indies there is indefinite wealth waiting: to bo 



90 The English in the West Indies. 

developed by intelligence and capital ; and men with such 
resources, both English and American, might be tempted still 
to settle there, and lead the blacks along with them into more 
settled manners and higher forms of civilisation. But the 
future of the blacks, and our own influence over them for 
good, depend on their being protected from themselves and 
from the schemers who would take advantage of them. How- 
ever little may be the share to which the mass of a population 
be admitted in the government of their country, they are 
never found hard to manage where they prosper and are 
justly dealt with. The children of darkness are even easier 
of control than the children of light. Under an administra- 
tion formed on the model of that of our Eastern Empire 
these islands would be peopled in a generation or two with 
dusky citizens, as proud as the rest of us of the flag under 
which they will have thriven, and as willing to defend it 
against any invading enemy as they are now unquestionably 
indifferent. Partially elected councils, local elected boards, 
&c, serve only as contrivances to foster discontent and en- 
courage jobbery. They open a rift which time will widen, 
and which will create for us, on a smaller scale, the condi- 
tions which have so troubled us in Ireland, where each con- 
cession of popular demands makes the maintenance of the 
connection more difficult. In the Pacific colonies self-govern- 
ment is a natural right ; the colonists are part of ourselves, 
and have as complete a claim to the management of their own 
affairs as we have to the management of ours. The less we 
interfere with them the more heartily they identify themselves 
with us. But if we choose besides to indulge our ambition 
with an empire, if we determine to keep attached to our do- 
minion countries which, like the East Indies, have been con- 
quered by the sword, countries, like the West Indies, which, 
however acquired, are occupied by races enormously outnum- 
bering us, many of whom do not speak our language, are not 



England's Duty. 91 

connected with us by sentiment, and not visibly connected by 
interest, with whom our own people will not intermarry or 
hold social intercourse, but keep aloof from, as superior from 
inferior — to impose on such countries forms of self-govern- 
ment at which we have ourselves but lately arrived, to put it 
in the power of these overwhelming numbers to shake us off 
if they please, and to assume that when our real motive has 
been only to save ourselves trouble they will be warmed into 
active loyalty by gratitude for the confidence which we pre- 
tend to place in them, is to try an experiment which we have 
not the slightest right to expect to be successful, and which 
if it fails is fatal. 

Once more, if we mean to keep the blacks as British sub- 
jects, we are bound to govern them, and to govern them well 
If we cannot do it, we had better let them go altogether. 
And here is the real difficulty. It is not that men competent 
for such a task cannot be found. Among the public servants 
of Great Britain there are persons always to be found fit and 
willing for posts of honour and difficulty if a sincere effort 
be made to find them. Alas ! in times past we have sent per- 
sons to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage 
— troublesome members of Parliament, younger brothers of 
powerful families, impecunious peers ; favourites, with back- 
stairs influence, for whom a provision was to be found ; colo- 
nial clerks, bred in the office, who had been obsequious and 
useful. 

One had hoped that in the new zeal for the colonial con- 
nection such appointments would have become impossible 
for the future, yet a recent incident at the Mauritius has 
proved that the colonial authorities are still unregenerate. 
The unfit are still maintained in their places ; and then, to 
prevent the colonies from suffering too severely under their 
incapacity, we set up the local councils, nominated or elected, 
to do the work, while the Queen's representative enjoys his 



92 The English in the West Indies. 

salary. Instances of glaring impropriety like that to which 
I have alluded are of course rare, and among colonial govern- 
ors there are men of quality so high that we would desire 
only to see their power equal to it. But so limited is the 
patronage, on the other hand, which remains to the home ad- 
ministration, and so heavy the pressure brought to bear upon 
them, that there are persons also in these situations of whom 
it may be said that the less they do, and the less they are en- 
abled to do, the better for the colony over which they pre- 
side. 

The West Indies have been sufferers from another cause. 
In the absence of other use for them they have been made to 
serve as places where governors try their 'prentice hand and 
learn their business before promotion to more important sit- 
uations. Whether a man has done well or done ill makes, it 
seems, very little difference unless he has offended prejudices 
or interests at home : once in the service he acquires a vested 
right to continue in it. A governor who had been suspended 
for conduct which is not denied to have been most improper, 
is replaced with the explanation that if be was not sent back 
to his old post it would have been necessary to provide a sit- 
uation for him elsewhere. Why would it ? Has a captain of 
a man-of-war whose ship is taken from him for misconduct 
an immediate claim to have another? Unfortunate colonies ! 
It is not their interest which is considered under this system. 
But the subject is so delicate that I must say no more about 
it. I will recommend only to the attention of' the British 
democracy, who are now the parties that in the last instance 
are responsible, because they are the real masters of the Em- 
pire, the following apologue. 

In the time of the Emperor Nicholas the censors of the 
press seized a volume which had been published by the poet 
Kriloff, on the ground that it contained treasonable matter. 
Nicholas sent for Kriloff. The censor produced the incrim- 



Colonial Governors. 9.3 

inated passage, and Kriloff was made to read it aloud. It 
was a fable. A governor of a Eussian province was repre- 
sented as arriving in the other world, and as being brought 
up before Rhadaruanthus. He was accused, not of any 
crime, but of having been simply a nonentity — of having re- 
ceived his salary and spent it, and nothing more. Ehada- 
manthus listened, and when the accusing angel had done 
sentenced the prisoner into Paradise. ' Into Paradise ! ' said 
the angel, 'why, he has done nothing!' 'True,' said Ehad- 
amanthus, ' but how would it have been if he had done any- 
thing ? ' 

' Write away, old fellow,' said Nicholas to Kriloff. 

Has it never happened that British colonial officials who 
have similarly done nothing have been sent into the Paradise 
of promotion because they have kept things smooth and have 
given no trouble to their employers at home. 

In the evening of the day of the political meeting we dined 
at Government House. There was a large representative 
party, English, French, Spaniards, Corsicans — ladies and 
gentlemen each speaking his or her own language. There 
were the mayors of the two chief towns of Trinidad — Port of 
Spain and San Fernando — both enthusiastic for a constitu- 
tion. The latter was my neighbour at dinner, and insisted 
much on the fine qualities of the leading persons in the isl- 
and and the splendid things to be expected when responsible 
government should be conceded. The training squadron had 
arrived from Barbadoes, and the commodore and two or three 
officers were present in their uniforms. There was interest- 
ing talk about Trinidad's troublesome neighbour, Guzman 
Blanco, the President of Venezuela. It seems that Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh's Eldorado has turned out to be a fact after all. 
On the higher waters of the Orinoko actual gold mines do 
exist, and the discovery has quickened into life a long un- 
settled dispute about boundaries between British Guiana and 



94 The English in the West Indies. 

the republic. Don Guzman has been encroaching, so it was 
alleged, and in other ways had been offensive and imperti- 
nent. Ships were going — had been actually ordered to La 
Guyra, to pull his nose for him, and to tell him to behave 
himself. The time is past when we flew our hawks at game 
birds. The opinion of most of the party was that Don Guz- 
man knew it, and that his nose would not be pulled. Ho 
would regard our frigates as picturesque ornaments to his 
harbour, give the officers in command the politest reception, 
evade their demands, offer good words in plenty, and nothing 
else but words, and in the end would have the benefit of our 
indifference. ' 

In the late evening we had music. Our host sang well, our 
hostess was an accomplished artist. They had duets to- 
gether, Italian and English, and the lady then sang 'The 
Three Fishers,' Kingsley being looked on as the personal 
property of Trinidad and as one of themselves. She sang it 
very well, as well as any one could do who had no direct ac- 
quaintance with an English sea-coast people. Her voice was 
beautiful, and she showed genuine feeling. The silence when 
she ended was more complimentary than the loudest ap- 
plause. It was broken by a stupid member of council, who 
said to me, ' Is it not strange that a poet with such a gift of 
words as Mr. Kingsley should have ended that song with so 
weak a line ? "The sooner it's over the sooner to sleep " is 
nothing but prose.' He did not see that the fault which he 
thought he had discovered is no more than the intentional 
' dying away ' of the emotion created by the story in the com- 
mon lot of poor humanity. We drove back across the savan- 
nah in a blaze of fireflies. It is not till midnight that they 
put their lights out and go to sleep with the rest of the world. 

One duty remained to me before I left the island. The 

1 A squadron did go while I was in the West Indies. I have not 
heard that any other result came of it. 



Charles Warner. 95 

Warners are among the oldest of West Indian families, dis- 
tinguished through many generations, not the least in their 
then living chief and representative, Charles Warner, who in 
the highest ministerial offices had steered Trinidad through 
the trying times which followed the abolition of slavery. I 
had myself in early life been brought into relations with other 
members of his family. He himself was a very old man on 
the edge of the grave; but hearing that I was in Port of 
Spain, he had expressed a wish to see me. I found him in 
his drawing room, shrunk in stature, pale, bent double by 
weight of years, and but feebly able to lift his head to speak. 
I thought, and I judged rightly, that he could have but a 
few weeks, perhaps but a few days, to live. 

There is something peculiarly solemn in being brought to 
speak with a supremely eminent man, who is already strug- 
gling with the moment which is to launch him into a new 
existence. He raised himself in his chair. He gave me his 
withered hand. His eyes still gleamed with the light of an 
untouched intelligence. All else of him seemed dead. The 
soul, untouched by the decay of the frame which had been 
its earthly tenement, burnt bright as ever on the edge of its 
release. 

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain, 
And they breathe truth who breathe their words in pain. 

He roused himself to talk, and he talked sadly, for all 
things at home and everywhere were travelling on the road 
which he well knew could lead to no good end. No states- 
man had done better practical work than he, or work Avhich 
had borne better fruit, could it be allowed to ripen. But 
for him Trinidad would have been a wilderness, savage as 
Avhen Columbus found the Caribs there. He belonged to 
the race who make empires, as the orators lose them, who do 
things and do not talk about them, who build and do not 



96 The English in the West Indies. 

cast down, who reverence ancient habits and institutions as 
the organic functions of corporate national character ; a 
Tory of the Tories, who nevertheless recognised that Tory- 
ism itself was passing away under the universal solvent, and 
had ceased to be a faith which could be believed in as a 
guide to conduct. 

He no more than any one could tell what it was now wisest 
or even possible to do. He spoke like some ancient seer, 
whose eyes looked beyond the present time and the present 
world, and saw politics and progress and the wild whirlwind 
of change as the play of atoms dancing to and fro in the sun- 
beams of eternity. Yet he wished well to our poor earth, 
and to us who were still struggling upon it. He was sorry 
for the courses on which he saw mankind to be travelling. 
Spite of all the newspapers and the blowing of the trumpets, 
he well understood whither all that was tending. He spoke 
with horror and even loathing of the sinister leader who was 
drawing England into the fatal whirlpool. He could still 
hope, for he knew the power of the race. He knew that the 
English heart was unaffected, that we were suffering only 
from delirium of the brain. The day would yet come, he 
thought, when we should struggle back into sanity again 
with such wreck of our past greatness as might still be left 
to us, torn and shattered, but clothed and in our right mind, 
and cured for centuries of our illusions. 

My forebodings of the nearness of the end were too well 
founded. A month later I heard that Charles Warner was 
dead. To have seen and spoken with such a man was worth 
a voyage round the globe. 

On the prospects of Trinidad I have a few more words to 
add. The tendency of the island is to become what Grenada 
has become already — a community of negro freeholders, 
each living on his own homestead, and raising or gathering 
off the ground what his own family will consume. They 



Future of the Island. 97 

will multiph', for there is ample room. Three quarters of 
the soil are still unoccupied. The 140,000 blacks will rap- 
idly grow into a half -million, and the half-million, as long 
as we are on the spot to keep the peace, will speedily double 
itself again. The English inhabitants will and must be 
crowded out. The geographical advantages of the Gulf of 
Paria will secure a certain amount of trade. There will be 
mei-chants and bankers in the town as floating passage birds, 
and there will be mulatto lawyers and shopkeepers and news- 
paper writers. But the blacks hate the mulattoes, and the 
mulatto breed will not maintain itself, as with the indepen- 
dence of the blacks the intimacy between blacks and whites 
diminishes and must diminish. The English peasant immi- 
gration which enthusiasts have believed in is a dream, a 
dream which passed through the ivory gate, a dream which 
will never turn to a waking reality ; and unless under the 
Indian S} r stem, which our rulers will never try unless the 
democracy orders them to adopt it, the English interest will 
come to an end. 

The English have proved in India that they can play a 
great and useful part as rulers over recognised inferiors. 
Even in the West Indies the planters were a real something. 
Like the English in Ireland, they produced a remarkable 
breed of men : the Codringtons, the Warners, and many 
illustrious names besides. They governed chiefly on their 
own resources, and the islands under their rule were so 
profitable that we fought for them as if our Empire was at 
stake. All that is gone. The days of ruling races are sup- 
posed to be numbered. Trade drifts away to the nearest 
market — to New York or New Orleans — and in a money 
point of view the value of such possessions as Trinidad will 
soon be less than nothing to us. 

As long as the present system holds, there will be an ap- 
preciable addition to the sum of human (coloured human) 



98 The English in the West Indies. 

happiness. Lighter-hearted creatures do not exist on the 
globe. But the continuance of it depends on the continu- 
ance of the English rule. The peace and order which they 
benefit by is not of their own ci'eation. In spite of schools 
and missionaries, the dark connection still maintains itself 
with Satan's invisible world, and modern education contends 
in vain with Obeah worship. As it has been in Hayti, so it 
must be in Trinidad if the English leave the blacks to be 
their own masters. 

Scene after scene passes by on the magic slide. The man- 
eating Caribs first, then Columbus and his Spaniards, the 
French conquest, the English occupation, but they have left 
behind them no self-quickening seed of healthy civilisation, 
and the prospect darkens once more. It is a pity, for there 
is no real necessity that it should darken. The West Indian 
negro is conscious of his own defects, and responds more 
willingly than most to a guiding hand. He is faithful and 
affectionate to those who are just and kind to him, and with 
a century or two of wise administration he might prove that 
his inferiority is not inherent, and that with the same chances 
as the white he may rise to the same level. I cannot part 
with the hope that the English people may yet insist that 
the chance shall not be denied to him, and that they may yet 
give their officials to understand that they must not, shall 
not, shake off their responsibilities for this unfortunate peo- 
ple, by flinging them back upon themselves ' to manage their 
own affairs,' now that we have no further use for them. 

I was told that the keener- witted Trinidad blacks are watch- 
ing as eagerly as we do the development of the Irish problem. 
They see the identity of the situation. They see that if the 
Radical view prevails, and in every country the majority are 
to rule, Trinidad will be theirs and the government of the 
English will be at an end. I, for myself, look upon Trinidad 
and the West Indies generally as an opportunity for the 



British Dominion. 99 

further extension of the influence of the English race in their 
special capacity of leaders and governors of men. We can- 
not with honour divest ourselves of our responsibility for the 
blacks, or after the eloquence we have poured out and the 
self-laudation which we have allowed ourselves for the sup- 
pression of slavery, leave them now to relapse into a state 
from which slavery itself was the first step of emancipation. 
Our world-wide dominion will not be of any long endurance 
if we consider that we have discharged our full duty to our 
fellow-subjects when we have set them free to follow their 
own devices. If that is to be all, the sooner it vanishes into 
history the better for us and for the world. 

L.cfC. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Barbadoes again — Social condition of the island — Political constitution 
— Effects of the sugar, bounties — Dangers of general bankruptcy — 
The Hall of Assembly — Sir Charles Pearson — Society in Bridge- 
town — A morning drive — Church of St. John's — Sir Graham Briggs 
— An old planter's palace — The Chief Justice of Barbadoes. 

Again at sea, and on the way back to Barbadoes. The 
commodox'e of the training squadron had offered me a berth 
to St. Vincent, but he intended to work up under sail against 
the north-east trade, which had risen to half a gale, and I 
preferred the security and speed of the mail boat. Among 

the passengers was Miss , the lady whom I had seen 

sketching on the way to the Blue Basin. She showed me 
her drawings, which were excellent. She showed me in her 
mosquito-bitten arms what she had endured to make them, 
and I admired her fortitude. She was English, and was on 
her way to join her father at Codrington College. 

We had a wild night, but those long vessels care little for 
winds and waves. By morning we had fought our way back 
to Grenada. In the St. Vincent roadstead, which we reached 
the same day, the ship was stormed by boatloads of people 
who were to go on with us ; boys on their way to school at 
Barbadoes, ladies young and old, white, black, and mixed, 
who were bound I know not where. The night fell dark as 
pitch, the storm continued, and Ave were no sooner beyond 

the shelter of the land than every one of them save Miss 

and myself was prostrate. The vessel ploughed on upon her 
way indifferent to us and to them. We were at Bridgetown 



Negroes in Barbadoes. 101 

by breakfast time, and I was now to have an opportunity of 
studying more at leisure the earliest of our West Indian 
colonies. 

Barbadoes is as unlike in appearance as it is in social con- 
dition to Trinidad or the Antilles. There are no mountains 
in it, no forests, no rivers, and as yet no small freeholders. 
The blacks, who number nearly 200,000 in an island not larger 
than the Isle of Wight, are labourers, working for wages on 
the estates of large proprietors. Land of their own they 
have none, for there is none for them. Work they must, for 
they cannot live otherwise. Thus every square yard of soil 
is cultivated, and turn your eyes where you will you see 
houses, sugar canes, and sweet potatoes. Two hundred and 
fifty years of occupation have imprinted strongly an English 
character ; parish churches solid and respectable, the English 
language, the English police and parochial system. However 
it may be in the other islands, England in Barbadoes is still 
a solid fact. The headquarters of the West Indian troops are 
there. There is a commander-in-chief residing in a ' Queen's 
House,' so called. There is a savannah where there are Eng- 
lish bari-acks under avenues of almond and mahogany. Bed 
coats are scattered about the grass. Officers canter about 
playing polo, and naval and military uniforms glitter at the 
side of carriages, and horsemen and horsewomen take their 
evening rides, as well mounted and as well dressed as you 
can see in Botten Bow. Barbadoes is thus in pleasing con- 
trast with the conquered islands which we have not taken the 
trouble to assimilate. In them remain the wrecks of the 
French civilisation which we superseded, but we have planted 
nothing of our own. Barbadoes, the European aspect of it at 
any rate, is English throughout. 

The harbour when we arrived was even more brilliant than 
we had left it a fortnight before. The training squadron had 
gone, but in the place of it the West Indian fleet was there. 



102 The English in the West Indies. 

and there were also three American frigates, old wooden ves- 
sels out merely on a cruise, but heavily sparred, smart and 
well set up, with the stars and stripes floating carelessly at 
their sterns, as if in these western seas, be the nominal domin- 
ion British, French, or Spanish, the American has a voice 
also and intends to be heard. 

We had no sooner anchored than a well-appointed boat 
was alongside with an awning and an ensign at the stern. 

Colonel , the chief of the police, to whom it belonged, 

came on board in search of Miss , who was to be his 

guest in Bridgetown. She introduced me to him. He in- 
sisted on my accompanying him home to breakfast, and, as 
he was a person in authority, I had nothing to do but obey. 

Colonel , to whose politeness then and afterwards I was 

in many ways indebted, had seen life in various forms. He 
had been in the navy. He had been in the army. He had 
been called to the bar. He was now the- head of the Bar- 
badoes police, with this anomalous addition to his other du- 
ties, that in default of a chaplain he read the Church service 
on Sundays in the barracks. He had even a license from the 
bishop to preach sermons, and being a man of fine character 
and original sense he discharged this last function, I was told, 
remarkably well. His house was in the heart of the town, 
but shaded with tropical trees. The rooms were protected 
by deep outside galleries, which were overrun with Bougain- 
villier creepers. He was himself the kindest of entertainers, 
his Irish lady the kindest of hostesses, with the humorous 
high breeding of the old Sligo aristocracy, to whom she be- 
longed. I found that I had been acquainted with some of 
her kindred there long ago, in the days when the Anglo-Irish 
rule had not been discovered to be a upas tree, and cultivated 
human life was still possible in Connaught. Of the break- 
fast, which consisted of all the West Indian dainties I had 
ever heard or read of, I can say nothing, nor of the pleasant 



The Constitution of Baroadoes. 103 

talk which followed. I was to see more of Colonel , for 

he offered to drive me some day across the island, a promise 
which he punctually fulfilled. My stay with him for the 
present could be but brief, as I was expected at Government 
House. 

I have met with exceptional hospitality from the govern- 
ors of British colonies in many parts of the world. They 
are not chosen like the Roman proconsuls from the ranks of 
trained statesmen who have held high administrative offices 
at home. They are appointed, as I said just now, from vari- 
ous motives, sometimes with a careful regard to fitness for 
their post, sometimes with a regard merely to routine or 
convenience or to personal influence brought to bear in their 
favour. I have myself seen some for whom I should have 
thought other emjoloyment would have been more suitable ; 
but always and everywhere those that I have fallen in with 
have been men of honour and integrity above reproach or sus- 
picion, and I have met with one or two gentlemen in these 
situations whose admirable qualities it is impossible to praise 
too highly, who in their complicated responsibilities — respon- 
sibilities to the colonies and responsibilities to the authorities 
at home — have considered conscience and duty to be their 
safest guides, have cared only to do what they believed to be 
right to the best of their ability, and have left their interests 
to take care of themselves. 

The Governor of Barbadoes is not despotic. He controls 
the administration, but there is a constitution as old as the 
Stuarts ; an Assembly of thirty-three members, nine of whom 
the Crown nominates, the rest are elected. The friction is 
not so violent as when the number of the nominated and 
elected members is equal, and as long as a property qualifica- 
tion was required for the franchise, the system may have 
worked tolerably without producing any violent mischief. 
There have been recent modifications, however, pointing in 



104 The English in the West Indies. 

the same direction as those -which have been made in Jamaica. 
By an ordinance from home the suffrage has been Avidely ex- 
tended, obviously as a step to larger intended changes. 

Under such conditions and with an uncertain future a gov- 
ernor can do little save lead and influence, entertain visitors, 
discharge the necessary courtesies to all classes of his subjects, 
and keep his eyes open. These duties at least Sir Charles 
Lees discharges to perfection, the entertaining part of them 
on a scale so liberal that if Pere Labat came back he would 
suppose that the two hundred years which have gone by since 
his visit was a dream, and that Government House at least 
was still as he left it. In an establishment which had so 
many demands upon it, and where so many visitors of all 
kinds were going and coming, I had no claim to be admitted. 
I felt that I should be an intruder, and had I been allowed 
would have taken myself elsewhere, but Sir Charles's peremp- 
tory generosity admitted of no refusal. As a subject I was 
bound to submit to the Queen's representative. I cannot say 
I was sorry to be compelled. In Government House I should 
see and hear what I could neither have seen nor heard else- 
where. I should meet people who could tell me what I most 
wanted to know. I had understood already that owing to 
the sugar depression the state of the island was critical. Of- 
ficials were alarmed. Bankers wei'e alarmed. No one could 
see beyond the next year what was likely to happen. Sir 
Charles himself would have most to say. He was evidently 
anxious. Perhaps if he -had a fault, he was over anxious ; 
but with the possibility of social confusion before him, with 
nearly 200,000 peasant subjects, who in a few months might 
be out of work and so out of food, with the inflammable 
negro nature, and a suspicious and easily excited public 
opinion at home, the position of a Governor of Barbadoes is 
not an enviable one. The Government at home, no doubt 
with the best intentions, has aggravated any peril which there 



Social Condition. 105 

may be by enlarging the suffrage. The experience of Gov- 
ernor Eyre in Jamaica has taught the danger of being too ac- 
tive, but to be too inactive may be dangerous also. If there 
is a stir again in any part of these islands, and violence and 
massacre come of it, as it came in St. Domingo, the respon- 
sibility is with the governor, and the account will be strictly 
exacted of him. 

I must describe more particularly the reasons which there 
are for uneasiness. On the day on which I landed I saw an 
article in a Bridgetown paper in which my coming there was 
spoken of as perhaps the last straw which would break the 
overburdened back. I know not why I should be thought 
likely to add anything to the load of Barbadian afflictions. 
I should be a worse friend to the colonies than I have tried 
to be if I was one of those who would quench the smoking 
-flax of loyalty in any West Indian heart. But loyalty, I very 
well know, is sorely tried just now. The position is painfully 
simple. The great prosperity of the island ended with eman- 
cipation. Barbadoes suffered less than Jamaica or the An- 
tilles because the population was large and the land limited, 
and the blacks were obliged to work to keep themselves alive. 
The abolition of the sugar duties was the next blow. The 
price of sugar fell, and the estates yielded little more than 
the expense of cultivation. Owners of properties who were 
their own managers, and had sense and energy, continued to 
keep themselves afloat ; but absenteeism had become the 
fashion. The brilliant society which is described by Labat 
had been melting for more than a century. More and more 
the old West Indian families removed to England, farmed 
their lands through agents and overseers, or sold them to 
speculating capitalists. The personal influence of the white 
man over the black, which might have been brought about 
by a friendly intercourse after slavery was abolished, was 
never so much as attempted. The higher class of gentry 



106 The English in the West Indies. 

found the colony more and more distasteful to them, and 
they left the arrangement of the labour question to persons 
to whom the blacks were nothing, emancipated though they 
might be, except instruments of production. A negro can 
be attached to his employer at least as easily as a horse or a 
dog. The horse or dog requires kind treatment, or he be- 
comes indifferent or sullen ; so it is with the negro. But the 
forced equality of the races before the law made more diffi- 
cult the growth of any kindly feeling. To the overseer on a 
plantation the black labourer was a machine out of which 
the problem was to get the maximum of work with the mini- 
mum of pay. In the slavery times the horse and dog rela- 
tion was a real thing. The master and mistress joked and 
laughed with their dark bondsmen, knew Caesar from Pompey, 
knew how many children each had, gave them small presents, 
cared for them when they were sick, and maintained them 
when they were old and past work. All this ended with 
emancipation. Between whites and blacks no relations re- 
mained save that of employer and employed. They lived 
apart. They had no longer, save in exceptional instances, 
any personal communication with each other. The law re- 
fusing to recognise a difference, the social line was drawn the 
harder, which the law was unable to reach. 

In the Antilles, the plantations broke up as I had seen in 
Grenada. The whites went away, and the land was divided 
among the negroes. In Barbadoes, the estates were kept to- 
gether. The English character and the English habits were 
printed deeper there, and were not so easily obliterated. 
But the stars in their courses have fought against the old 
system. Once the West Indies had a monopoly of the sugar 
trade. Steam and progress have given them a hundred nat- 
ural competitors ; and on the back of these came the -unnat- 
ural bounty-fed beetroot sugar competition. Meanwhile the 
expense of living increased in the days of inflated hope and 



Dangers of Bankruptcy. 107 

'unexampled prosperity.' Free trade, whatever its imme- 
diate consequences, was to make every one rich in the end. 
When the income of an estate fell short one year, it was to 
rise in the next, and money was borrowed to make ends meet ; 
when it didn't rise, more money was borrowed ; and there is 
now hardly a property in the island which is not loaded to 
the sinking point. Tied to sugar-growing - , Barbadoes has no 
second industry to fall back upon. The blacks, who are heed- 
less and light-hearted, increase and multiply. They will not 
emigrate, they are so much attached to their homes ; and the 
not distant prospect is of a general bankruptcy, which will 
throw the land for the moment out of cultivation, with a 
hungry unemployed multitude to feed without means of feed- 
ing them, and to control without the personal acquaintance 
and influence which alone can make control possible. 

At home there is a general knowledge that things are not 
going on well out there. But, true to our own ways of think- 
ing, we regard it as their affair and not as ours. If cheap sugar 
ruins the planters, it benefits the English workman. The 
planters had their innings ; it is now the consumer's turn. 
What are the West Indies to us ? On the map they appear 
to belong more to the United States than to us. Let the 
United States take them and welcome. So thinks, perhaps, 
the average Englishman ; and, analogous to him, the West 
Indian proprietor reflects that, if admitted into the Union, he 
would have the benefit of the American market, which would 
set him on his feet again ; and that the Americans, probably 
finding that they, if not we, could make some profit out of the 
islands, would be likely to settle the black question for him in 
a more satisfactory manner. 

That such a feeling as this should exist is natural and par- 
donable ; and it would have gone deeper than it has gone if 
it were not that there are two parties to every bargain, and 
those in favor of such a union have met hitherto with no en- 



108 The English in the West Indies. 

couragement. The Americans are wise in their generation. 
They looked at Cuba ; they looked at St. Domingo. They 
might have had both on easy terms, but they tell you that 
their constitution does not allow them to hold dependent 
states. What they annex they absorb, and they did not wish 
to absorb another million and a half of blacks and as many 
Roman Catholics, having enough already of both. Our Eng- 
lish islands may be more tempting, but there too the black 
cloud hangs thick and grows yearly thicker, and through 
English indulgence is more charged with dangerous elements. 
Already, they say, they have every advantage which the isl- 
ands can give them. They exercise a general protectorate, 
and would probably interfere if France or England were to 
attempt again to extend their dominions in that quarter ; but 
they prefer to leave to the present owners the responsibility 
of managing and feeding the cow, while they are to have the 
milking of it. 

Thus the proposal of annexation, which has never gone be- 
yond wishes and talk, has so far been coldly received ; but 
the Americans did make their offer a short time since, at 
which the drowning Barbadians grasped as at a floating 
plank. England would give them no hand to save them from 
the effects of the beetroot bounties. The Americans were 
willing to relax their own sugar duties to admit West Indian 
sugar duty free, and give them the benefit of their own high 
prices. The colonies being unable to make treaties for them- 
selves, the proposal was referred home and was rejected. The 
Board of Trade had, no doubt, excellent reasons for objecting 
to an arrangement which would have flung our whole com- 
merce with the West Indies into American hands, and might 
have formed a prelude to a closer attachment. It would have 
been a violation also of those free -trade principles which are 
the English political gospel. Moreover, our attitude towards 
our colonies has changed, too, in the last twenty years ; we 



Effects of the Sugar Bounties. 109 

now wish to preserve the attachment of communities whom 
a generation back we should have told to do as they liked, 
and have bidden them God speed upon their way ; and this 
treaty may have been regarded as a step toward separation. 
But the unfortunate Barbadians found themselves, with the 
harbour in sight, driven out again into the free-trade hurri- 
cane. We would not help them ourselves ; we declined to let 
the Americans help them ; and help themselves they could 
not. They dare not resent our indifference to their interests, 
which, if they were stronger, would have been more visibly 
displayed. They must wait' now for what the future will 
briug with as much composure as they can command, but I 
did hear outcries of impatience to which it was unpleasant to 
listen. Nay, it was even suggested as a means of inducing 
the Americans to forego their reluctance to take them into 
the Union, that we might relinquish such rights as we pos- 
sessed in Canada if the Americans would relieve us of the 
West Indies, for which we appeared to care so little. 

If Barbadoes is driven into bankruptcy, the estates will 
have to be sold, and will probably be broken up as they 
have been in the Antilles. The first difficulty will thus be 
got over. But the change cannot be carried out in a day. 
If wages suddenly cease, the negroes will starve, and will 
not take their starvation patiently. At the worst, however, 
means will probably be found to keep the land from falling 
out of cultivation. The Barbadians see their condition in 
the light of their grievances, and make the worst of it. The 
continental powers may tire of the bounty system, or some- 
thing else may happen to make sugar rise. The prospect is 
not a bright one, but what actually happens in this world is 
generally the unexpected. 

As a visit my stay at Government House was made simply 
delightful to me. I remained there (with interruptions) for 
a fortnight, and Lady L did not only permit, but she in- 



110 The English in the West Indies. 

sisted that I should be as if in an hotel, and come and go as 
I liked. The climate of Barbadoes, so far as I can speak of 
it, is as sparkling and invigorating as champagne. Cocktail 
may be wanted in Trinidad. In Barbadoes the air is all one 
asks for, and between night breezes and sea breezes one 
has plenty of it. Day begins with daylight, as it ought 
to do. You have slept without knowing anything about it. 
There are no venomous crawling creatures. Cockroaches are 
the worst, but they scuttle out of the way so alarmed and 
ashamed of themselves if you happen to see them, that I 
never could bring myself to hurt one. You spring out of 
bed as if the process of getting up were actually pleasant. 
Well-appointed West Indian houses are generally provided 
with a fresh-water swimming bath. Though cold by cour- 
tesy the water seldom falls below 65°, and you float luxu- 
riously upon it without dread of chill. The early coffee fol- 
lows the bath, and then the stroll under the big trees, 
among strange flowers, or in the grotto with the ferns 
and humming birds. If it were part of one's regular life, I 
suppose that one would want something to do. Sir Charles 
was the most active of men, and had been busy in his office 
for an hour before I had come down to lounge. But for my- 
self I discovered that it was possible, at least for an interval, 
to be perfectly idle and perfectly happy, surrounded by the 
daintiest beauties of an English hothouse, with palm trees 
waving like fans to cool one, and with sensitive plants, which 
are common as daisies, strewing themselves under one's feet 
to be trodden upon. 

After breakfast the heat would be considerable, but with 
an umbrella I could walk about the town and see what was 
to be seen. Alas ! here one has something to desire. Where 
Pere Labat saw a display of splendour which reminded him 
of Paris and London, you now find only stores on the Ameri- 
can pattern, for the most part American goods, bad in qual« 



The Hall of the Assembly. Ill 

ity and extravagantly dear. Treaty or no treaty, it is to 
America that the trade is drifting, and we might as well con- 
cede with a good grace what must soon come of itself 
whether we like it or not. The streets are relieved from 
ugliness by the trees and by occasional handsome buildings. 
Often I stood to admire the pea-green Nelson. Once I went 
into the Assembly where the legislature was discussing more 
or less unquietly the prospects of the island. The question 
of the hour was economy. In the opiniou of patriot Bar- 
badians, sore at the refusal of the treaty, the readiest way to 
reduce expenditure was to diminish the salaries of officials 
from the governor downwards. The officials, knowing that 
they were very moderately paid already, naturally demurred. 
The most interesting part of the thing to me was the hall in 
which the proceedings were going on. It is handsome in it- 
self, and has a series of painted windows representing the 
English sovereigns from James I. to Queen Victoria. Among 
them in his proper place stood Oliver Cromwell, the only 
formal recognition of the great Protector that I know of in 
any part of the English dominions. Barbadoes had been 
Cavalier in its general sympathies, but has taken an inde- 
pendent view of things, and here too has had an opinion of 
its own. 

Hospitality was always a West Indian characteristic. There 
were luncheons and dinners, and distinguished persons to be 
met and talked to. Among these I had the special good for- 
tune of making acquaintance with Sir Charles Pearson, now 
commanding-in-chief in those parts. Even in these days, 
crowded as they are by small incidents made large by news- 
papers, we have not yet forgotten the defence of a fort in the 
interior of Zululand where Sir Charles Pearson and his small 
garrison were cut off from their communications with Natal. 
For a week or two he was the chief object of interest in every 
English house. In obedience to orders which it was not his 



112 The English in the West Indies. 

business to question, lie had assisted Sir T. Shepstone in the 
memorable annexation of the Transvaal. He had seen also 
to what that annexation led, and, being a truth-speaking 
man, he did not attempt to conceal the completeness of our 
defeat. Our military establishment in the West Indies is of 
modest dimensions ; but a strong English soldier, who says 
little and does his duty, and never told a lie in his life or 
could tell one, is a comforting figure to fall in with. One 
feels that there will be something to retire upon when parlia- 
mentary oratory has finished its work of disintegration. 

The pleasantest incident of the day was the evening drive 

with Lady L . She would take me out shortly before 

sunset, and bring me back again when the tropical stars were 
showing faintly and the fireflies had begun to sparkle about 
the bushes, and the bats were flitting to and fro after the 
night moths like spirits of darkness chasing human souls. 

The neighbourhood of Bridgetown has little natural beau- 
ty ; but the roads are excellent, the savannah picturesque 
with riding parties and polo players and lounging red jack- 
ets, every one being eager to pay his or her respect to 
the gracious lady of the Queen's representative. We called 
at pretty villas where there would be evening teas and lawn 
tennis in the cool. The society is not extensive, and here 
would be collected most of it that was worth meeting. At 
one of these parties I fell in with the officers of the American 
squadron, the commodore a very interesting and courteous 
gentleman whom I should have taken for a fellow-country- 
man. There are many diamonds, and diamonds of the first 
water, among the Amei'icans as among ourselves ; but the 

cutting and setting is different. Commodore D was cut 

and set like an Englishman. He introduced me to one of 
his brother officers who had been in Hayti. Spite of Sir 
Spencer St. John, spite of all the confirmatory evidence which 
I had heard, I was still incredulous about the alleged canni- 



A Morning Drive. 113 

balism there. To my inquiries this gentleman had only the 
same answer to give. The fact was beyond question. He 
had himself known instances of it. 

The commodore had a grievance against us illustrating 
West Indian manners. These islands are as nervous about 
their health as so many old ladies. The yellow flags float on 
ship after ship in the Bridgetown roadstead, and crews, pas- 
sengers, and cargoes are sternly interdicted from the land. 
Jamaica was in ill name from small-pox, and, as Cuba will not 
drop its intercourse with Jamaica, Cuba falls also under the 
ban. The commodore had directed a case of cigars from 
Havana to meet him at Barbadoes. They arrived, but might 
not be transferred from the steamer which brought them, 
even on board his own frigate, lest he might bring infection 
on shore in his cigar case. They went on to England, to 
reach him perhaps eventually in New York. 

Colonel 's duties, as chief of the police, obliged him 

to make occasional rounds to visit his stations. He recol- 
lected his promise, and he invited me one morning to ac- 
company him. "We were to breakfast at his house on our 
return, so I anticipated an excursion of a few miles at the 
utmost. He called for me soon after sunrise with a light 
carriage and a brisk pair of horses. We were rapidly clear 
of the town. The roads were better than the best I have 
seen out of England, the only fault in them being the white 
coral dust which dazzles and blinds the eyes. Everywhere 
there were signs of age and of long occupation. The stone 
steps leading up out of the road to the doors of the houses 
had been worn by human feet for hundreds of years. The 
houses themselves were old, and as if suffering from the uni- 
versal depression — gates broken, gardens disordered, and 
woodwork black and blistered for want of paint. But if the 
habitations were neglected, there was no neglect in the fields. 
Sugar cane alternated with sweet potatoes and yams and 



114 The English in the West Indies. 

other strange things the names of which I heard and forgot ; 
but there was not a weed to be seen or broken fence where 
fence was needed. The soil was clean, every inch of it, as 
well hoed and trenched as in a Middlesex market garden. 
Salt fish and flour, which is the chief food of the blacks, is 
imported ; but vegetables enough are raised in Barbadoes to 
keep the cost of living incredibly low ; and, to my unin-' 
structed eyes, it seemed that even if sugar and wages did 
fail there could be no danger of any sudden famine. The 
people were thick as rabbits in a warren ; women with 
loaded baskets on their heads laughing and chirruping, men 
driving donkey carts, four donkeys abreast, smoking their 
early pipes as if they had not a care in the world, as, indeed, 
they have not. 

On we went, the Colonel's horses stepping out twelve 
miles an hour, and I wondered privately what was to become 
of our breakfast. We were striking right across the island, 
along the coral ridge which forms the backbone of it. We 
found ourselves at length in a grove of orange trees and 
shaddocks, at the old church of St. John's, which stands 
upon a perpendicular cliff ; Codrington College on the level 
under our feet, and beyond us the open Atlantic and the 
everlasting breakers from the trade winds fringing the shore 
with foam. Far out were the white sails of the fishing 
smacks. The Barbadians are careless of weather, and the 
best of boat sailors. It was very pretty in the bright morn- 
ing, and the church itself was not the least interesting part 
of the scene. The door was wide open. We went in, and I 
seemed to be in a parish church in England as parish 
churches used to be when I was a child. There were the 
old-fashioned seats, the old unadorned communion table, 
the old pulpit and reading desk and the clerk's desk below, 
with the lion and the unicorn conspicuous above the chancel 
arch. The white tablets on the wall bore familiar names 



St. JohrCs Church. 115 

dating back into the last century. On the floor were flag- 
stones still older with armorial bearings and letters cut in 
stone, half effaced by the feet of the generations who had 
trodden up the same aisles till they, too, lay down and rested 
there. And there was this, too, to be remembered — that 
these Barbadian churches, old as they might seem, had be- 
longed always to the Anglican communion. No mass had 
ever been said at that altar. It was a milestone on the high 
road of time, and was venerable to me at once for its antiq- 
uity and for the era at which it had begun to exist. 

At the porch was an ancient slab on which was a coat of 
arms, a crest with a hand and sword, and a motto, ' Sic nos, 
sic nostra tuemur.' The inscription said that it was in mem- 
ory of Michael Mahon, 'of the kingdom of Ireland,' erected 
by his children and grandchildren. "Who was Michael Mahon? 
Some expatriated, so-called rebel, I suppose, whose sword 
could not defend him from being Barbados'd with so many 
other poor wretches who were sent the same road — victims 
of the tragi-comedy of the English government of Ireland. 
There were plenty of them wandering about in Labat's time, 
ready, as Labat observes, to lend a help to the French, should 
they take a fancy to land a force in the island. 

The churchyard was scarcely so home-like. The graves 
were planted with tropical shrubs and flowers. Palms waved 
over the square stone monuments, stephanotis and jessa- 
mine crept about the iron railings. The primroses and 
hyacinths and violets, with which we dress the mounds under 
which our friends are sleeping, will not grow in the tropics. 
In the place of them are the exotics of our hothouses. We 
too are, perhaps, exotics of another kind in these islands, and 
may not, after all, have a long abiding place in them. 

Colonel , who with his secular duties combined serious 

and spiritual feeling, was a friend of the clergyman of St. 
John's, and hoped to introduce me to him. This gentleman, 



116 The English in the West Indies. 

however, was absent from home. Our round was still but half 
completed ; we had to mount again and go another seven 
miles to inspect a police station. The police themselves were, 
of course, blacks — well-grown fine men, in a high state of dis- 
cijDline. Our visit was not expected, but all was as it should 
be ; the rooms well swept and airy, the horses in good condi- 
tion, stable clean, harness and arms polished and ready for 
use. Serious as might be the trials of the Barbadians and 
decrepit the financial condition, there were no symptoms of 
neglect either on the farms or in the social machinery. 

Altogether we drove between thirty and forty miles that 
morning. We were in time for breakfast after all, and I had 
seen half the island. It is like the Isle of Thanet, or the 
country between Calais and Boulogne. One characteristic 
feature must not be forgotten : there are no rivers and no 
waterpower ; steam engines have been introduced, but the 
chief motive agent is still the never-ceasing trade wind. You 
see windmills everywhere, as it was in the time of Labat. 
The planters are reproached as being behind the age ; they 
are told that with the latest improvements they might still 
defy their beetroot enemy. It may be so, but a wind which 
never rests is a force which costs little, and it is possible that 
they understand their own business best. 

Another morning excursion showed me the rest of the 
country, and introduced me to scenes and persons still more 
interesting. Sir Graham Briggs l is perhaps the most dis- 
tinguished representative of the old Barbadian families. He 
is, or was, a man of large fortune, with vast estates in this and 
other islands. A few years ago, when prospects were brighter, 
he was an advocate of the constitutional development so much 
recommended from England. The West Indian Islands were 

1 As I correct the proofs I learn, to my great sorrow, that Sir Graham 
is dead. I have lost in him a lately made but valued friend ; and the 
colony has lost the ablest of its legislators. 



Sir Graham Briggs. 117 

to be confederated into a dominion like that of Canada, to 
take over the responsibilities of government, and to learn to 
stand alone. The decline in the value of property, the gen- 
eral decay of the white interest in the islands, and the rapid 
increase of the blacks, taught those who at one time were 
ready for the change what the real nature of it would be. 
They have paused to consider ; and the longer they consider 
the less they like it. 

Sir Graham had called upon me at Government House, and 
had spoken fully and freely about the offered American sugar 
treaty. As a severe sufferer he was naturally irritated at the 
rejection of it ; and in the mood in which I found him, I 
should think it possible that if the Americans would hold 
their hands out with an offer of admission into the Union, he 
and a good many other gentlemen would meet them halfway. 
He did not say so — I conjecture only from natural probabili- 
ties, and from what I should feel myself if I were in their po- 
sition. Happily the temptation cannot fall in their way. An 
American official laconically summed up the situation to me : 
' As satellites, sir, as much as you please ; but as part of the 
primary — no, sir.' The Americans will not take them into 
the Union ; they must remain, therefore, with their English 
primary and make the best of it ; neither as satellites, for 
they have no proper motion of their own, nor as incorporated 
in the British Empire, for they derive no benefit from their 
connection with it, but as poor relations distantly acknowl- 
edged. I did not expect that Sir Graham would have more 
to say to me than he had said already ; but he was a culti- 
vated and noteworthy person, his house was said to be the 
most splendid of the old Barbadian merchant palaces, and 
I gratefully accepted an invitation to pay him a short visit. 

I started as before in the early morning, before the sun was 
above the trees. The road followed the line of the shore. 
Originally, I believe, Barbadoes was like the Antilles, covered 



118 The English in the West Indies. 

with forest. In the interior little remains save cabbgae palms 
and detached clumps of mangy-looking mahogany trees. 
The forest is gone, and human beings have taken the place of 
it. For ten miles I was driving through a string of straggling 
villages, each cottage or cabin having its small vegetable gar- 
den and clump of plantains. Being on the western or shel- 
tered side of the island, the sea was smooth and edged with 
mangrove, through which at occasional openings we saw the 
shining water and the white coral beach, and fishing boats 
either drawn up upon it or anchored outside with their sails 
up. Trees had been planted for shade among the houses. 
There were village greens with great silk- cotton trees, ban- 
yans and acacias, mangoes and oranges, and shaddocks with 
their large fruit glowing among the leaves like great golden 
melons. The people swarmed, children tumbling about half 
miked, so like each other that one wondered whether their 
mothers knew their own from their neighbours' ; the fisher- 
man's wives selling flying fish, of which there are infinite 
numbers. It was an innocent, pretty scene. One missed 
green fields with cows upon them. Guinea grass, which is 
all that they have, makes excellent fodder, but is ugly (o 
look at ; and is cut and carried, not eaten where it grows. 
Of animal life there were innumerable donkeys — no black 
man will walk if he can find a donkey to carry him — in- 
finite poultry, and pigs, familiar enough, but not allowed a 
free entry into the cabins as in Ireland. Of birds there was 
not any great variety. The humming birds preferred less 
populated quarters. There were small varieties of finches 
and sparrows and buntings, winged atoms without beauty of 
form or colour ; there were a few wild pigeons ; but the pre- 
vailing figure was the Barbadian crow, a little fellow no 
bigger than a blackbird, a diminutive jackdaw, who gets his 
living upon worms and insects and parasites, and so tame 
that he would perch upon a boy's head if he saw a chance of 



Negro Women. 119 

finding anything eatable there. The women dress ill in Bar- 
badoes, for they imitate English ladies ; but no dress can 
conceal the grace of their forms when they are young. It 
struck PerC Labat two centuries ago, and time and their sup- 
posed sufferings as slaves have made no difference. They 
work harder than the men, and are used as beasts of burden 
to fetch and carry, but they carry their loads on their heads, 
and thus from childhood have to stand upright with the 
neck straight and firm. They do not spoil their shapes with 
stays, or their walk with high-heeled shoes. They jnant their 
feet firmly on the ground. Every movement is elastic and 
rounded, and the grace of body gives, or seems to give, grace 
also to the eyes and expression. Poor things ! it cannot 
compensate for their colour, which now when they are free is 
harder to bear than when they were slaves. Their prettiness, 
such as it is, is short-lived. They grow old early, and an old 
negress is always hideous. 

After keeping by the sea for an hour we turned inland, and 
at the foot of a steep hill we met my host, who transferred me 
to his own carriage. We had still four or five miles to go 
through cane fields and among sugar mills. At the end of 
them we came to a grand avenue of cabbage palms, a hun- 
dred or a hundred and twenty feet high. How their slim 
stems with their dense coronet of leaves survive a hurricane 
is one of the West Indian marvels. They escape destruction 
by the elasticity with which they yield to it. The branches 
which in a calm stand out symmetrically, forming a circle of 
which the stem is the exact centre, bend round before a vio- 
lent wind, are pressed close together, and stream out hori- 
zontally like a horse's tail. 

The avenue led up to Sir Graham's house, which stands 
800 feet above the sea. The garden, once the wonder of the 
island, was running wild, though rare trees and shrubs sur- 
vived from its ancient splendour. Among them were two 



120 The English in the West Indies. 

Wellingtonias as tall as the palms, but bent out of shape by 
the trade winds. Passing through a hall, among a litter of 
Carib curiosities, we entered the drawing room, a magnifi- 
cent saloon extending with various compartments over the 
greater part of the ground-floor story. It was filled with 
rare and curious things, gathered in the days when sugar 
was a horn of plenty, and selected with the finest taste ; pict- 
ures, engravings, gems, antiquarian relics, books, maps, and 
manuscripts. There had been fine culture in the West Indies 
when all these treasures were collected. The English settlers 
there, like the English in Ireland, had the tastes of a grand 
race, and by-and-by we shall miss both of them when they 
are overwhelmed, as they are likely to be, in the revolution- 
ary tide. Sir Graham was stemming it to the best of his 
ability, and if he was to go under would go under like a 
gentleman. A dining room almost as large had once been 
the scene of hospitalities like those which are celebrated by 
Tom Cringle. A broad staircase led up from the hall to long 
galleries, out of which bedrooms opened ; with cool deep 
balconies and the universal green blinds. It was a palace 
with which Aladdin himself might have been satisfied, one of 
those which had stirred the envying admiration of foreign 
travellers in the last century, one of many then, now probably 
the last surviving representative of Anglo-West Indian civili- 
sation. Like other forms of human life, it has had its day 
and could not last for ever. Something better may grow in 
the place of it, but also something worse may grow. The 
example of Hayti ought to suggest misgivings to the most 
ardent philo-negro enthusiast. 

West Indian cookery was famous over the world. Pere 
Labat devotes at least a thousand pages to the dishes com- 
pounded of the spices and fruits of the islands, and their fish 
and fowl. Carib tradition was developed by artists from 
London and Paris. The Caribs, according to Labat, only ate 



Social Revolution. 121 

one another for ceremony and on state occasions ; their com- 
mon diet was as excellent as it was innocent ; and they had 
ascertained by careful experience the culinary and medicinal 
virtues of every animal and plant around them. Tom Cringle 
is eloquent on the same subject, but with less scientific knowl- 
edge. My own unfortunately is less than his, and I can do 
no justice at all to Sir Graham's entertainment of me ; I can 
but say that he treated me to a West Indian banquet of the 
old sort, infinite in variety, and with subtle differences of 
flavour for which no language provides names. The wine — 
laid up consule Planco, when Pitt was prime minister, and the 
days of liberty as yet were not — was as admirable as the 
dishes, and the fruit more exquisite than either. Such pine- 
apples, such shaddocks, I had never tasted before, and shall 
never taste again. 

Hospitable, generous, splendid as was Sir Graham's recep- 
tion of me, it was nevertheless easy to see that the prospects 
of the island sat heavy upon him. We had a long conversa- 
tion when breakfast was over, which, if it added nothing new 
to what I had heard before, deepened and widened the im- 
pression of it. 

The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, 
are going through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolu- 
tion, as we hope, is a transition state, a new birth ; a passing 
away of what is old and worn out, that a fresh and healthier 
order may rise in its place. In the West Indies the most 
sanguine of mortals will find it difficult to entertain any such 
hope at all. We have been a ruling power there for two 
hundred and fifty years ; the whites whom we planted as 
our representatives are drifting into ruin, and they regard 
England and England's policy as the principal cause of 
it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous benevolence, we 
emancipated, do not feel that they are particularly obliged to 
us. They think, if they think at all, that they were ill treated 



122 The English in the West Indies. 

originally, and have received no more than was due to them, 
and that perhaps it was not benevolence at all on our part, 
but a desire to free ourselves from the reproach of slave- 
holding. At any rate, the tendencies now in operation are 
loosening the hold which we possess on the islands, and the 
longer they last the looser that hold will become. French 
influence is in no danger of dying out in Martinique and 
Guadaloupe. The Spanish race is not dying in Cuba and 
Puerto Kico. England will soon be no more than a name in 
Barbadoes and the Antilles. Having acquitted our con- 
science by emancipation, we have left our West Indian inter- 
est to sink or swim. Our principle has been to leave each 
part of our empire (except the East Indies) to take care of 
itself : we give the various inhabitants liberty, and what we 
understand by fair play ; that we have any further moral re- 
sponsibilities towards them we do not imagine, even in our 
dreams, when they have ceased to be of commercial impor- 
tance to us ; and we assume that the honour of being British 
subjects will suffice to secure their allegiance. It will not 
suffice, as we shall eventually discover. We have decided 
that if the West Indies are to become again prosperous they 
must recover by their own energy. Our other colonies can 
do without help ; why not they ? We ought to remember 
that they are not like the other colonies. We occupied them 
at a time when slavery was considered a lawful institution, 
profitable to ourselves and useful to the souls of the negroes, 
who were brought by it within reach of salvation. We be- 

1 It was on this ground alone that slavery was permitted in the 
French islands. Labat says : 

' C'est vine loi tres-ancienne que les terres soumises aux rois de 
France rendent libres tous ceux qui s'y peuvent retirer. C'est ce qui 
fit que le roi Louis XIII, de glorieuse menioire, aussi pieux qu'il etoit 
sage, eut toutes les peines du monde a consentir que les premiers habi- 
tants des isles eussent des esclaves : et ne se rendit enlin qu'aux pres- 



West Indian Confederation. 123 

came ourselves the chief slave dealers iu the world. We peo- 
pled our islands with a population of blacks more dense by 
far in proportion to the whites than France or Spain ever 
ventured to do. We did not recognise, as the French and 
Spaniards did, that if our western colonies were permanent- 
ly to belong to us, we must occupy them ourselves. We 
thought only of the immediate profit which was to be gath- 
ered cut of the slave gangs ; and the disproportion of the 
two races — always dangerously large — has increased with 
ever-gathering velocity since the emancipation. It is now 
beyond control on the old lines. The scanty whites are told 
that they must work out their own salvation on equal terms 
with their old servants. The relation is an impossible one. 
The independent energy which we may fairly look for in 
Australia and New Zealand is not to be looked for in Ja- 
maica and Barbadoes ; and the problem must have a new 
solution. 

Confederation is to be the remedy, we are told. Let the 
islands be combined under a constitution. The whites col- 
lectively will then be a considerable body, and can assert 
themselves successfully. Confederation is, as I said before of 
the movement in Trinidad, but a turn of the kaleidoscope, 
the same pieces with a new pattern. A West Indian self- 
governed Dominion is possible only with a full negro vote. 
If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It will be a 
rule by the blacks and for the blacks. Let a generation or 
two pass by and carry away with them the old traditions, and 
an English governor-general will be found presiding over a 
black council, delivering the speeches made for him by a 

santes sollicitations qu'on luy faisoit de leur octroyer cette permission 
queparce qu'on lui remontra que c'etoit ira moyen infaillible et I'unique 
qu'il y eut pour inspirer le ciilte du vrai Dieu aux Africains, les retirer 
de l'idolatrie, et les faire perseverer jusqu'a la mort dans la religion 
chretienue qu'on leur feroit emurasser. ' — Vol. iv. p. 14. 



124 



The English in the West Indies. 















({$< 



black prime minister ; and how long could this endure ? No 
English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a sit- 
uation. The two races are not equal and will not blend. If 
the white j^eople do not depart of themselves, black legislation 
will make it impossible for any of them to stay who would 
not be better out of the way. The Anglo-Irish Protestants 
will leave Ireland if there is an Irish Catholic parliament in 
College Green ; the whites, for the same reason, will leave 
the West Indies ; and in one and the other the connection 
with the British Empire will disappear along with them. It 
must be so ; only politicians whose horizon does not extend 
beyond their personal future, and whose ambition is only to se- 
cure the immediate triumph of their party, can expect any- 
thing else. 

Before my stay at Barbadoes ended, I had an opportunity 
of meeting at dinner a negro of pure blood who has risen to 
eminence by his own talent and character. He has held the 
office of attorney-general. He is now chief justice of the 
island. Exceptions are supposed proverbially to prove noth- 
ing, or to prove the opposite of what they appear to prove. 
When a particular phenomenon occurs rarely, the probabili- 
ties are strong against the recurrence of it. Having heard 
the craniological and other objections to the supposed identity 
of the negro and white races, I came to the opinion long ago in 
Africa, and I have seen no reason to change it, that whether 
they are of one race or not there is no original or congeni- 
tal difference of capacity between them, any more than there 
is between a black horse and a black dog and a white horse 
and a white dog. With the same chances and with the same 
treatment, I believe that distinguished men would be pro- 
duced equally from both races, and Mr. 's well-earned 

success is an additional evidence of it. But it does not fol- 
low that what can be done eventually can be done immedi- 
ately, and the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary 



History of Human Development. 125 

prejudice, but has been opened by the centuries of training 
and discipline which have given us the start in the race. "We 
set it down to slavery. It would be far truer to set it down 
to freedom. The African blacks have been free enough for 
thousands, perhaps for tens of thousands of years, and it has 
been the absence of restraint which has prevented them from 
becoming civilised. Generation has followed generation, and 
the children are as like their father as the successive genera- 
tions of apes. The whites, it is likely enough, succeeded one 
another with the same similarity for a long series of ages. It 
is now supposed that the human race has been upon the planet 
for a hundred thousand years at least, and the first traces of 
civilisation cannot be thrown back at farthest beyond six 
thousand. During all those ages mankind went on treading 
in the same steps, century after century making no more ad- 
vance than the birds and beasts. In Egypt or in India or one 
knows not where, accident or natural development quickened 
into life our moral and intellectual faculties ; and these facul- 
ties have grown into what we now experience, not in the free- 
dom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp 
rule of the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise. 
Our own Anglo-Norman race has become capable of self-gov- 
ernment only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual au- 
thority. European government, European instruction, con- 
tinued steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a 
higher instinct, may shorten the probation period of the ne- 
gro. Individual blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick 
Douglas in America, or the Chief Justice of Barbadoes, will 
avail themselves of opportunities to rise, and the freest op- 
portunities ought to be offered them. But it is as certain as 
any future event can be that if we give the negroes as a body 
the political powers which we claim for ourselves, they will 
use them only to their own injury. They will slide back into 
their old condition, and the chance will be gone of lifting 



126 The English in the West Indies. 

them to the level to which we have no right to say that they 
are incapable of rising. 

Chief Justice R owes his elevation to his English en- 
vironment and his English legal training. He would not 
pretend that he could have made himself what he is in Hayti 
or in Dahomey. Let English authority die away, and the 
average black nature, such as it now is, be left free to assert 
itself, and there will be no more negroes like him in Barba- 
does or anywhere. 

Naturally, I found him profoundly interested in the late 
revelations of the state of Hayti. Sir Spenser St. John, an 
English official, after residing for twelve years in Port au 
Prince, had in a published narrative with many details and 
particulars, declared that the republic of Toussaint l'Ouver- 
ture, the idol of all believers in the new gospel of liberty, 
had, after ninety years of independence, become a land where 
cannibalism could be practised with impunity. The African 
Obeah, the worship of serpents and trees and stones, after 
smouldering in all the West Indies in the form of witchcraft 
and poisoning, had broken out in Hayti in all its old hideous- 
ness. Children were sacrificed as in the old days of Moloch 
and were devoured with horrid ceremony, salted limbs being- 
preserved and sold for the benefit of those who were unable 
to attend the full solemnities. 

That a man in the position of a British resident should 
have ventured on a statement which, if untrue, would be 
ruinous to himself, appeared in a high degree improbable. 
Yet one had to set one incredibility against another. Not- 
withstanding the character of the evidence, when I went out 
to the West Indies I was still unbelieving. I could not bring 
myself to credit that in an island nominally Catholic, where 
the French language was spoken, and there were cathedrals 
and churches and priests and missionaries, so horrid a revival 
of devil-worship could have been really possible. All the in- 



Cannibalism in Hayti. 127 

quiries which I had been able to make, from American and 
other officers who had been in Hayti, confirmed Sir S. St. 
John's story. I had hardly found a person who entertained a 
doubt of it. I was perplexed and iincertain, when the Chief 
Justice opened the subject and asked me what I thought. Had 
I been convinced I should have turned the conversation, but 
I was not convinced and I was not afraid to say so. I re- 
minded him of the universal conviction through Europe that 
the Jews were habitually guilty of sacrificing children also. 
There had been detailed instances. Alleged offenders had 
been brought before courts of justice at any time for the last 
six hundred years. Witnesses had been found to swear to 
facts which had been accepted as conclusive. Wretched 
creatures in Henry Ill's time had been dragged by dozens at 
horses' tails through the streets of London, broken on the 
wheel, or torn to pieces by infuriated mobs. Even within 
the last two years, the same accusation had been brought 
forward in Russia and Germany, and had been established 
apparently by adequate proof. So far as popular conviction 
of the guilt of the Jews was an evidence against them, noth- 
ing could be stronger ; and no charge could be without 
foundation on ordinary principles of evidence which revived 
so often and in so many places. And yet many persons, I 
said, and myself among them, believed that although the 
accusers were perfectly sincere, the guilt of the Jews was 
from end to end an hallucination of hatred. I had looked 
into the particulars of some of the trials. They were like 
the trials for witchcraft. The belief had created the fact, and 
accusation was itself evidence. I was prepared to find these 
stories of child murder in Hayti were bred similarly of anti- 
negro prejudice. 

Had the Chief Justice caught at my suggestion with any 
eagerness I should have suspected it myself. His grave dif- 
fidence and continued hesitation in offering an opinion con- 



128 The English in the West Indies. 

firmed me in my own. I told him that I was going to Hayti 
to learn what I could on the spot. I could not expect that 
I, on a flying visit, could see deeper into the truth than Sir 
Spenser St. John had seen, but at least I should not take 
with me a mind already made up, and I was not given to 
credulity. He took leave of me with an expression of pas- 
sionate anxiety that it might be found possible to remove so 
black a stain from his unfortunate race. 



CHAPTEE X. 

Leeward and Windward Islands — The Caribs of Dominica — Visit of 
Pere Labat — St. Lucia — Tlie Pitons — The harbour at Castries — In- 
tended coaling station — Visit to the administrator — The old fort and 
barracks— Conversation with an American — Constitution of Do- 
minica — Land at Roseau. 

Beyond all the West Indian Islands I had been curious to 
see Dominica. 1 It was the scene of Kodney's great fight on 
April 12. It was the most beautiful of the Antilles and the 
least known. A tribe of aboriginal Caribs still lingered in 
the forests retaining the old look and the old language, and, 
except that they no longer ate their prisoners, retaining their 
old habits. They were skilful fishermen, skilful basket 
makers, skilful in many curious arts. 

The island lies between Martinique and Guadaloupe, and 
is one of the group now called Leeward Islands, as distin- 
guished from St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, &c, which 
form the Windward. The early geographers drew the line 
differently and more rationally. The main direction of the 
trade winds is from the east. To them the Windward 
Islands were the whole chain of the Antilles, which form the 
eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. The Leeward were the 
great islands on the west of it — Cuba, St. Domingo, Puerto 

1 Not to be confounded with St. Domingo, which is called after St. 
Domenic, where the Spaniards first settled, and is now divided into tbe 
two black republics of St Domingo and Hayti. Dominica lies in the 
chain of the Antilles between Martinique and Guadaloupe, and was so 
named by Columbus because he discovered it on a Sunday. 
9 



130 The English in the West Indies. 

Rico, and Jamaica. The modern division corresponds to no 
natural phenomenon. The drift of the trades is rather from 
the north-east than from the south-east, and the names 
serve only now to describe our own not very successful po- 
litical groupings. 

Dominica cuts in two the French West Indian possessions. 
The French took it originally from the Spaniards, occupied 
it, colonised it, planted in it their religion and their lan- 
guage, and fought desperately to maintain their possession. 
Lord Rodney, to whom we owe our own position in the West 
Indies, insisted that Dominica must belong to us to hold the 
French in check, and regarded it as the most important of 
all our stations there. Rodney made it English, and Eng- 
lish it has ever since remained in spite of the furious efforts 
which France made to recover an island which she so highly 
valued during the Napoleon wars. I was anxious to learn 
what we had made of a place which we had fought so hard 
for. 

Though Dominica is the most mountainous of all the 
Antilles, it is split into many valleys of exquisite fertility. 
Through each there runs a full and ample river, swarming 
with fish, and yielding waterpower enough to drive all the 
mills which industry could build. In these valleys and on 
the rich levels along the shore the French had once their 
cane fields and orange gardens, their pineapple beds and 
indigo plantations. 

Labat, who travelled through the island at the close of the 
seventeenth century, found it at that time chiefly occupied by 
Caribs. With his hungry appetite for knowledge, he was a 
guest in their villages, acquainted himself with their charac- 
ters and habits, and bribed out of them by lavish presents of 
brandy the secrets of their medicines and poisons. The 
Pere was a clever, curious man, with a genial human sym- 
pathy about him, and was indulgent to the faults which the 



The Cavils. 131 

poor coloured sinners fell into from never having known bet- 
ter. He tried to make Christians of them. They were will- 
ing to be baptised as often as he liked for a glass of brandy. 
But he was not very angry when he found that the Christi- 
anity went no deeper. Moral virtues, he concluded chari- 
tably, could no more be expected out of a Carib than reason 
and good sense out of a woman. 

At Roseau, the capital, he fell in with the then queen of 
Dominica, a Madame Ouvernard, a Carib of pure blood, who 
in her time of youth and beauty had been the mistress of an 
English governor of St. Kitts. When Labat saw her she was a 
hundred years old with a family of children and grandchil- 
dren. She was a grand old lady, unclothed almost absolutely, 
bent double, so that under ordinary circumstances nothing of 
her face could be seen. Labat, however, presented her with 
a couple of bottles of eau de vie, under the influence of which 
she lifted up to him a pair of still brilliant eyes and a fair 
mouthful of teeth. They did very well together, and on part- 
ing they exchanged presents in Homeric fashion, she loading 
him with baskets of fruit, he giving a box in return full of 
pins and needles, knives and scissors. 

Labat was a student of languages before philology had be- 
come a science. He discovered from the language of the 
Caribs that they were North American Indians. They called 
themselves Banari, which meant ' come from over sea.' Their 
dialect was almost identical with what he had heard spoken in 
Florida. They were cannibals, but of a peculiar kind. Hu- 
man flesh was not their ordinary food ; but they ' boucanned ' 
or dried the limbs of distinguished enemies whom they had 
killed in battle, and handed them round to be gnawed at 
special festivals. They were a light-hearted, pleasant race, 
capital shots with bows and arrows, and ready to do anything 
he asked in return for brandy. They killed a hammer shark 
for his amusement by diving under the monster and slabbing 






132 The English in the West Indies. 

him with knives. As to their religion, they had no objection 
to anything. But their real belief was in a sort of devil. 

Soon after Labat's visit the French came in, drove the 
Caribs into the mountains, introduced negro slaves, and an 
ordered form of society. Madame Ouvernard and her court 
went to their own place. Canes were planted, and indigo 
and coffee. A cathedral was built at Roseau, and parish 
churches were scattered about the island. There were con- 
vents of nuns and houses of friars, and a fort at the port with 
a garrison in it. The French might have been there till now 
had not we turned them out some ninety years ago ; English 
enterprise then setting in that direction under the impulse of 
Rodney's victories. I was myself about to see the improve- 
ments which we had introduced into an acquisition which 
had cost us so dear. 

I was to be dropped at Roseau by the mail steamer from 
Barbadoes to St. Thomas's. On our way we touched at St. 
Lucia, another once famous possession of ours. This island 
was once French also. Rodney took it in 1778. It was 
the only one of the Antilles which was left to us in the re- 
verses which followed the capitulation of York Town. It was 
in the harbour at Castries, the chief port, that Rodney col- 
lected the fleet which fought and won the great battle with 
the Count de Grasse, At the peace of Versailles, St. Lucia 
was restored to France ; but was retaken in 1796 by Sir 
Ralph Abercrombie, and, like Dominica, has ever since be- 
longed to England. This, too, is a beautiful mountainous 
island, twice as large as Barbadoes, in which even at this late 
day Ave have suddenly discovered that we have an interest. 
The threatened Darien canal has awakened us to a sense that 
we require a fortified coaling station in those quarters. St. 
Lucia has the greatest natural advantages for such a purpose, 
and works are already in progress there, and the long-de- 
serted forts and barracks, which had been made over to 



The Pitons of St. Lucia. 133 

snakes and lizards, are again to be occupied by English 
troops. 

We sailed one evening from Barbadoes. In the grey of 
the next morning we were in the passage between St. Lucia 
and St. Vincent just under the 'Pitons,' which were soaring 
grandly above us in the twilight. The Pitons are two conical 
mountains rising straight out of the sea at the southern end 
of St. Lucia, one of them 3,000 feet high, the other a few feet 
lower, symmetrical in shape like sugar loaves, and so steep as 
to be inaccessible to any one but a member of the Alpine Club. 
Tradition says that four English seamen, belonging to the 
fleet, did once set out to climb the loftier of the two. They 
were watched in their ascent through a telescope. When 
halfway up one of them was seen to drop, while three went 
on ; a few hundred feet higher a second dropped, and after- 
wards a third ; one had almost reached the summit, when he 
fell also. No account of what had befallen them ever reached 
their ship. They were supposed to have been bitten by the 
fer de lance, the deadliest snake in St. Lucia and perhaps in 
the world, who had resented and punished their intrusion into 
regions where they had no business. Such is the local legend, 
born probably out of the terror of a reptile which is no legend 
at all, but a living and very active reality. 

I had gone on deck on hearing where we were, and saw 
the twin grey peaks high above me in the sky, the last stars 
glimmering over their tops and the waves washing against 
the black precipices at their base. The night had been 
rough, and a considerable sea was running, which changed, 
however, to an absolute calm when we had passed the Pitons 
and were under the lee of the island. I could then observe 
the peculiar blue of the water which I was told that I should 
find at St. Lucia and Dominica. I have seen the sea of very 
beautiful colours in several parts of the world, but I never 
saw any which equalled this. I do not know the cause. The 



134 The English in the West Indies. 

depth is very great even close to the shore. The islands are 
merely volcanic mountains with sides extremely steep. The 
coral insect has made anchorages in the bays and inlets, else- 
where you are out of soundings almost immediately. As to 
St. Lucia itself, if I had not seen Grenada, if I had not known 
what I was about to see in Dominica, I should have thought 
it the most exquisite place which nature had ever made, so 
perfect were the forms of the forest-clothed hills, the glens 
dividing them and the high mountain ranges in the interior 
still draped in the white mist of morning. Here and there 
along the shore there were bright green spots which meant 
cane fields. Sugar cane in these countries is always called 
for brevity cane. 

Here, as elsewhere, the population is almost entirely negro, 
forty thousand blacks and a few hundred whites, the ratio 
altering every year to white disadvantage. The old system 
has not, however, disappeared as completely as in other 
places. There are still white planters with large estates, 
which are not encumbered as in Barbadoes. They are strug- 
gling along, discontented of course, but not wholly despond- 
ent. The chief complaint is the somewhat weary one of the 
laziness of the blacks, who they say will work only when they 
please, and are never fully awake except at dinner time. I 
do not know that they have a right to expect anything else 
from poor creatures whom the law calls human, but who to 
them are only mechanical tools, not so manageable as tools 
ought to be, with whom they have no acquaintance and no 
human relations, whose wages are but twopence an hour 
and are diminished by fines at the arbitrary pleasure of the 
overseer. 

Life and hope and energy are the qualities most needed. 
When the troops return there will be a change, and spirit 
may be put into them again. Castries, the old French town, 
lies at the head of a deep inlet which runs in among the 



The Harhour at St. Lucia. 135 

mountains like a fiord. This is to be the future coaling- 
station. The mouth of the bay is narrow with a high pro- 
jecting ' head ' on either side of it, and can be easily and 
cheaply fortified. There is little or no tide in these seas. 
There is depth of water sufficient in the greater part of the 
harbour for line-of-battle ships to anchor and turn, and the 
few coral shoals which would be in the way are being torn 
up with dredging machines. The island has borrowed sev- 
enty thousand pounds on Government security to prepare for 
the dignity which awaits it and for the prosperity which is to 
follow. There was real work actively going on, a rare and 
perhaps unexampled phenomenon in the English West Indies. 

"We brought up alongside of a wharf to take in coal. It 
was a strange scene ; cocoa-nut palms growing incongruously 
out of coal stores, and gorgeous flowering creepers climbing 
over the workmen's sheds. Volumes of smoke rose out of 
the dredging engines and hovered over the town. We had 
come back to French costume again ; we had left the white 
dresses behind at Barbadoes, and the people at Castries were 
bright as parrots in crimsons and blues and greens ; but fine 
colours looked oddly out of place by the side of the grimy re- 
production of England. 

I went on shore and fell in with the engineer of the works, 
who kindly showed me his plans of the harbour, and explained 
what was to be done. He showed me also some beautiful 
large bivalves which had been brought up in the scrapers out 
of the coral. They were new to me and new to him, though 
they may be familiar enough to more experienced naturalists. 
Among other curiosities he had a fer de lance, lately killed 
and preserved in spirits, a rat-tailed, reddish, powerful-looking 
brute, about four feet long and as thick as a child's wrist. 
Even when dead I looked at him respectfully, for his bite is 
fatal and the effect almost instantaneous. He is fearless, and 
will not, like most snakes, get out of your way if he hears you 



136 The English in the West Indies. 

coming, but leaves you to get out of his. He has a bad habit, 
too, of taking his walks at night ; he prefers a path or a road 
to the grass, and your house or your garden to the forest ; 
while if you step upon him you will never do it again. They 
have introduced the mongoose, who has cleared the snakes out 
of Jamaica, to deal with him ; but the mongoose knows the 
creature that he has to encounter, and as yet has made little 
progress in extirpating him. 

St. Lucia is under the jurisdiction of Barbadoes. It has no 
governor of its own, but only an administrator indifferently 
paid. The elective principle has not yet been introduced into 
the legislature, and perhaps will not be introduced since we 
have discovered the island to be of consequence to us, unless 
as part of some general confederation. The present admin- 
istrator — Mr. Laborde, a gentleman, I suppose, of French 
descent — is an elderly official, and resides in the old quarters 
of the general of the forces, 900 feet above the sea. He has 
large responsibilities, and, having had large experience also, 
seems fully equal to the duties which attach to him. He can- 
not have the authority of a complete governor, or undertake 
independent enterprises for the benefit of the island, as a 
Rajah Brooke might do, but he walks steadily on in the lines 
assigned to him. St. Lucia is better off in this respect than 
most of the Antilles, and may revive perhaps into something 
like prosperity when the coaling station is finished and under 
the command of some eminent engineer officer. 

Mr. Laborde had invited us to lunch with him. Horses 
were waiting for us, and we rode up the old winding track 
which led from the town to the barracks. The heat below 
was oppressive, but the air cooled as we rose. The road is so 
steep that resting places had been provided at intervals, 
where the soldiers could recover breath or shelter themselves 
from the tropical cataracts of rain which fall without notice, 
as if the string had been pulled of some celestial shower bath. 



The Cantonments at St. Lucia. 137 

The trees branched thickly over it, making an impenetrable 
shade, till we emerged on the plateau at the top, where Ave 
were on comparatively level ground, with the harbour im- 
mediately at our feet. The situation had been chosen by the 
French when St. Lucia was theirs. The general's house, now 
Mr. Laborde's residence, is a long airy building with a deep 
colonnade, the drawing and dining rooms occupying the en- 
tire breadth of the ground floor, with doors and windows on 
both sides for coolness and air. The western front overlooked 
the sea. Behind were wooded hills, green valleys, a mountain 
range in the background, and the Pitonsbluein the distance. 
As we were before our time, Mr. Laborde walked me out to 
see the old barracks, magazines, and water tanks. They 
looked neglected and dilapidated, the signs of decay being 
partly hid by the creepers with which the walls were over- 
grown. The soldiers' quarters were occupied for the time by 
a resident gentleman, who attended to the essential repairs 
and prevented the snakes from taking possession as they were 
inclined to do. I forget how many of the fer de lance sort 
he told me he had killed in the rooms since he had lived in 
them. 

In the war time we had maintained a large establishment 
in St. Lucia ; with what consequences to the health of the 
troops I could not clearly make out. One informant told me 
that they had died like flies of yellow fever, and that the 
fields adjoining were as full of bodies as the Brompton ceme- 
tery ; another that yellow fever had never been known there 
or any dangerous disorder ; and that if we wanted a sanitary 
station this was the spot for it. Many thousands of pounds 
will have to be spent there before the troops can return ; but 
that is our way with the colonies — to change our minds every 
ten years, to do and undo, and do again, according to parlia- 
mentary humours, while John Bull pays the bill patiently for 
his own irresolution. 



138 The English in the West Indies. 

The fortress, once very strong, is now in ruins, but, I sup- 
pose, will be repaired and rearmed unless we are to trust to 
the Yankees, who are supposed to have established a Pax Dei 
in these waters and will permit no agressive action there 
either by us or against us. We walked round the walls ; we 
saw the hill a mile off from which Abercrombie had battered 
out the French, having dragged his guns through a roadless 
forest to a spot to which there seemed no access except 011 
wings. The word ' impossible ' was not known in those days. 
What Englishmen did once they may do again perhaps if 
stormy days come back. The ruins themselves were silently 
impressive. One could hear the note of the old bugles as they 
sounded the reveille and the roaring of the /I'M dejoie when 
the shattered prizes were brought in from the French fleet. 
The signs of what once had been were still visible in the pa- 
rade ground, in the large mangoes which the soldiers Lad 
planted, in the English grass which they had introduced and 
on which cattle were now grazing. There was a clump of 
guavas, hitherto only known to me in preserves. I gathered 
a blossom as a remembrance, white like a large myrtle flower, 
but heavily scented — too heavily, with an odour of death 
about it. 

Mr. Laborde's conversation was instructive. His enter- 
tainment of us was all which our acquired West Indian fas- 
tidiousness could desire. The inevitable cigars followed, and 
Mr. L. gave me a beating at billiards. There were some 
lively young ladies in the party, and two or three of the ship's 
officers. The young ones played lawn tennis, and we old ones 
looked on and wished the years off our shoulders. So passed 
the day. The sun was setting when we mounted to ride 
down. So short is the twilight in these latitudes, that it was 
dark night when we reached the town, and we required the 
light of the stars to find our boat. 

When the coaling process was finished, the ship had been 



A Casual American. 139 

washed clown in our absence and was anchored off beyond the 
reach of the dirt ; but the ports were shut ; the windsails had 
been taken down ; the air in the cabins was stifling ; so I 
stayed on deck till midnight with a clever young American, 
who was among our fellow-passengers, talking of many things. 
He was ardent, confident, self-asserting, but not disagreeably 
either one or the other. It was rather a pleasure to hear a 
man speak in these flabby uncertain days as if he were sure 
of anything, and I had to notice again, as I had often noticed 
before, how well informed casual American travellers are on 
public affairs, and how sensibly they can talk of them. He 
had been much in the West Indies, and seemed to know them 
well. He said that all the whites in the islands wished at the 
bottom of their hearts to be taken into the Union ; but the 
Union Government was too wise to meddle with them. The 
trade would fall to America of itself. The responsibility and 
trouble might remain where it was. I asked him about the 
Canadian fishery disputes. He thought it would settle itself 
in time, and that nothing serious would come of it. ' The 
Washington Cabinet had been a little hard on England,' he 
admitted ; ' but it was six of one and half a dozen of the 
other.' 'Honours were easy; neither party could score.' 
'We had been equally hard on them about Alaska.' 

He was less satisfied about Ireland. The telegraph had 
brought the news of Mr. Goschen's defeat at Liverpool, and 
Home Kule, which had seemed to have been disposed of, was 
again within the range of probabilities. He was watching 
with pitying amusement, like most of his countrymen, the 
weakness of will with which England allowed herself to be 
worried by so contemptible a business ; but he did seem to 
fear, and I have heard others of his countrymen say the 
same, that if we let it go on much longer the Americans may 
become involved in the thing one way or another, and trouble 
may rise about it between the two countries. 



140 The English in the West Indies. 

We weighed ; and I went to bed and to sleep, and so 
missed Pigeon Island, where Rodney's fleet lay before the 
action, and the rock from Avhich, through his telescope, he 
watched De Grasse come out of Martinique, and gave his 
own signal to chase. We rolled as usual between the islands. 
At daylight we were again in shelter under Martinique, and 
again in classic regions ; for close to us was Diamond Rock 
— once his Majesty's ship 'Diamond,' commissioned with 
crew and officers — one of those curious true incidents, out of 
which a legend might have grown in other times, that ship 
and mariners had been turned to stone. The rock, a lonely 
pyramid six hundred feet high, commanded the entrance to 
Port Royal in Martinique. Lord Howe took possession of it, 
sent guns up in slings to the top, and left a midshipman with 
a handful of men in charge. The gallant little fellow held 
his fortress for several months, peppered away at the French, 
and sent three of their ships of war to the bottom. He was 
blockaded at last by an overwhelming force. No relief could 
be spared for him. Escape was impossible, as he had not so 
much as a boat, and he capitulated to famine. 

We stayed two hours under Martinique. I did not land. 
It has been for centuries a special object of care on the part 
of the French Government. It is well looked after, and, con- 
sidering the times, prosperous. It has a fine garrison, and a 
dockyard well furnished, with frigates in the harbours ready 
for action should occasion arise. I should infer from what I 
heard that in the event of war breaking out between England 
and France, Martinique, in the present state of preparation 
on both sides, might take possession of the rest of the An- 
tilles with little difficulty. Three times we took it, and we 
gave it back again. In turn, it may one daj r , perhaps, take 
us, and the English of the West Indies become a tradition 
like the buccaneers. 

The mountains of Dominica are full in smht from Marti- 



First Sight of Dominica. 141 

nique. The channel which separates them is but thirty miles 
across, and the view of Dominica as you approach it is ex- 
tremely grand. Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Martinique 
are all volcanic, with lofty peaks and ridges ; but Dominica 
was at the centre of the force which lifted the Antilles out of 
the ocean, and the features which are common to all are there 
in a magnified form. The mountains range from four to five 
thousand feet in height. Mount Diablot, the highest of them, 
rises to between five and six thousand feet. The mountains 
being the tallest in all the group, the rains are also the most 
violent, and the ravines torn out by the torrents are the wild- 
est and most magnificent. The volcanic forces are still active 
there. There are sulphur springs and boiling water foun- 
tains, and in a central crater there is a boiling lake. There 
are strange creatures there besides : great snakes — harmless, 
but ugly to look at ; the diablot — from which the mountain 
takes its name — a great bird, black as charcoal, half raven, 
half parrot, which nests in holes in the ground as puffins do, 
spends all the day in them, and flies down to the sea at night 
to fish for its food. There were once great numbers of these 
creatures, and it was a favourite amusement to hunt and drag 
them out of their hiding places. Labat says that they were 
excellent eating. They are confined now in reduced num- 
bers to the inaccessible crags about the peak which bears 
their name. 

Martinique has two fine harbours. Dominica has none. 
At the north end of the island there is a bay, named after 
Prince Rupert, where there is shelter from all winds but the 
south, but neither there nor anywhere is there an anchorage 
which can be depended upon in dangerous weather. 

Roseau, the principal or only town, stands midway along 
the western shore. The roadstead is open, but as the pre- 
vailing winds are from the east the island itself forms a 
breakwater. Except on the rarest occasions there is neither 



142 The English in the West Indies. 

surf nor swell there. The land shelves off rapidly, and a 
gunshot from shore no cable can find the bottom, but there 
is an anchorage in front of the town, and coasting smacks, 
American schooners, passing steamers bring up close under 
the rocks or alongside of the jetties which are built out from 
the beach upon piles. 

The situation of Koseau is exceedingly beautiful. The sea 
is, if possible, a deeper azure even than at St. Lucia ; the air 
more transparent ; the forests of a lovelier green than I ever 
saw in any other country. Even the rain, which falls in 
such abundance, falls often out of a clear sky as if not to in- 
terrupt the sunshine, and a rainbow almost perpetually hangs 
its arch over the island. Roseau itself stands on a shallow 
promontory. A long terrace of tolerable-looking houses 
faces the landing place. At right angles to the terrace, 
straight streets strike backwards at intervals, palms and 
bananas breaking the lines of roof. At a little distance, you 
see the towers of the old French Catholic cathedral, a smaller 
but not ungracefuhlooking Anglican church, and to the right 
a fort, or the ruins of one, now used as a police barrack, 
over which flies the English flag as the symbol of our titular 
dominion. Beyond the fort is a public garden with pretty 
trees in it along the brow of a precipitous cliff, at the foot of 
which, when we landed, lay at anchor a couple of smart Yan- 
kee schooners and half a dozen coasting cutters, while round- 
ing inwards behind was a long shallow bay dotted over with 
the sails of fishing boats. White negro villages gleamed 
among the palms along the shore, and wooded mountains 
rose immediately above them. It seemed an attractive, inno- 
cent, sunny sort of place, very pleasant to spend a few days in, 
if the inner side of things corresponded to the appearance. 
To a looker-on at that calm scene it was not easy to realise 
the desperate battles which had been fought for the posses- 
sion of it, the gallant lives which had been laid down under 



The Dominican Constitution. 143 

the walls of that crumbling castle. These cliffs had echoed 
the roar of Bodney's guns on the day which saved the British 
Empire, and the island I was gazing at was England's Salamis. 

The organisation of the place, too, seemed, so far as I 
could gather from, official boohs, to have been carefully at- 
tended to. The constitution had been touched and re- 
touched by the home authorities as if no pains could be too 
great to make it worthy of a spot so sacred. There is an 
administrator, which is a longer word than governor. There 
is an executive council, a colonial secretary, an attorney-gen- 
eral, an auditor-general, and other such ' generals of great 
charge.' There is a legislative assembly of fourteen mem- 
bers, seven nominated by the Crown and seven elected by 
the people. And there are revenue officers and excise offi- 
cers, inspectors of roads, and civil engineers, and school 
boards, and medical officers, and registrars, and magistrates. 
Where would political perfection be found if not here with 
such elaborate machinery ? 

The results of it all, in the official reports, seemed equally 
satisfactory till you looked closely into them. The tariff of 
articles on which duties were levied, and the list of articles 
raised and exported, seemed to show that Dominica must be 
a beehive of industry and productiveness. The revenue, 
indeed, was a little startling as the result of this army of 
officials. Eighteen thousand pounds was the whole of it, 
not enough to pay their salaries. The population, too, on 
whose good government so much thought had been ex- 
pended, was only 30,000 ; of these 30,000 only a hundred 
were English. The remaining whites, and those in scanty 
numbers, were French and Catholics. The soil was as rich 
as the richest in the world. The cultivation was growing 
annually less. The inspector of roads was likely to have an 
easy task, for except close to the town there were no roads 
at all on which anything with wheels could travel, the old 



144 The English in the West Indies. 

roads made by the French having dropped into horse tracks, 
and the horse tracks into the beds of torrents. Why in an 
island where the resources of modern statesmanship had 
been applied so lavishly and with the latest discoveries in 
political science, the effect should have so ill corresponded 
to the means employed, was a problem into which it would 
be curious to inquire. 

The steamer set me down upon the pier and went on upon 
its way. At the end of a fortnight it would return and pick 
me up again. Meanwhile, I was to make the best of my 
time. I had been warned beforehand that there was no hotel 
in Roseau where an Englishman with a susceptible skin and 
palate could survive more than a week ; and as I had two 
weeks to provide for, I was uncertain what to do with my- 
self. I was spared the trial of the hotels by the liberality of 
her Majesty's representative in the colony. Captain Church- 
ill, the administrator of the island, had heard that I was 
coming there, and I was met on the landing stage by a mes- 
sage from him inviting me to be his guest during my stay. 
Two tall handsome black girls seized my bags, tossed them 
on their heads, and strode off with a light step in front of 
me, cutting jokes with their friends ; I following, and my 
mind misgiving me that I was myself the object of their wit. 

I was anxious to see Captain Churchill, for I had heard 
much of him. The warmest affection had been expressed 
for him personally, and concern for the position in which 
he was placed. Notwithstanding ' the latest discoveries of 
political science,' the constitution was still imperfect. The 
administrator, to begin with, is allowed a salary of only 
500£. a year. That is not much for the chief of such an 
army of officials ; and the hospitalities and social civilities 
which smooth the way in such situations are beyond his 
means. His business is to preside at the council, where, the 
official and the elected members being equally balanced and 



The Dominican Constitution. 145 

almost invariably dividing one against the other, his duty is 
to give the casting vote. He cannot give it against his own 
officers, and thus the machine is contrived to create the 
largest amount of friction, and to insure the highest amount 
of unpopularity to the administrator. His situation is the 
more difficult because the European element in Roseau, 
small as it is at best, is more French than English. The 
priests, the sisterhoods, are French or French-speaking. A 
French patois is the language of the blacks. Tbey are 
almost to a man Catholics, and to the French they look as 
their natural leaders, England has done nothing, absolutely 
nothing, to introduce her own civilisation ; and thus Do- 
minica is English only in name. Should war come, a boat- 
load of soldiers from Martinique would suffice to recover it. 
Not a black in the whole island would draw a trigger in de- 
fence of English authority, and, except the Grown officials, 
not half a dozen Europeans. The administrator can do 
nothing to improve this state of things. He is too poor to 
ojDen Government House to the Roseau shopkeepers and to 
bid for social popularity. He is no one. He goes in and 
out unnoticed, and flits about like a bat in the twilight. He 
can do no good, and from the nature of the system on the 
construction of which so much care was expended, no one 
else can do any good. The maximum of expense, the mini- 
mum of benefit to the island, is all that has come of it. 

Meanwhile the island drifts along, without credit to borrow 
money and therefore escaping bankruptcy. The blacks there, 
as everywhere, are happy with their yams and cocoa-nuts "and 
land crabs. They desire nothing better than they have, and 
do not imagine that they have any rulers unless agitated 
by the elected members. These gentlemen would like the 
official situations for themselves as in Trinidad, and they 
occasionally attempt a stir with partial success ; otherwise 
the island goes on in a state of torpid content. Captain 
10 



146 The English in the West Indies. 

Churchill, quiet and gentlemanlike, gives no personal offence, 
hut popularity he cannot hope for, having no means of recom- 
mending himself. The only really powerful Europeans are 
the Catholic bishop and the priests and sisterhoods. They 
are looked up to with genuine respect. They are reaping 
the harvest of the long and honourable efforts of the French 
clergy in all their West Indian possessions to make the blacks 
into Catholic Christians. In the Christian part of it they 
have succeeded but moderately ; but such religion as exists 
in the island is mainly what they have introduced and taught, 
and they have a distinct influence which we ourselves have 
not tried to rival. 

But we have been too long toiling up the paved road to 
Captain Churchill's house. My girl - porter guides led me 
past the fort, where they exchanged shots with the lounging 
black police, past the English church, which stood buried in 
trees, the churchyard prettily planted with tropical flowers. 
The sun was dazzling, the heat was intense, and the path 
which led through it, if not apparently much used, looked 
shady and cool. 

A few more steps brought us to the gate of the Residence, 
where Captain Churchill had his quarters in the absence of 
the Governor-in-Chief of the Leeward Islands, whose visits 
were few and brief. In the event of the Governor's arrival 
he removed to a cottage in the hills. The house was hand- 
some, the gardens well kept ; a broad walk led up to the 
door, a hedge of lime trees closely dipt on one side of it, on 
the other a lawn with orange trees, oleanders, and hibiscus, 
palms of all varieties and almond trees, which in Dominica 
grow iuto giants, their broad leaves turning crimson before 
they fall like the Virginia creeper. We reached the en- 
trance of the house by wide stone steps, where countless liz- 
ards were lazily basking. Through the bars of the railings 
on each side of them there were intertwined the runners of 



Captain Churchill and his Household. 147 

the largest and most powerfully scented stephanotis which I 
have even seen. Captain Churchill (one of the Marlborough 
Churchills) received me with more than cordiality. Society 
is not abundant in his Barataria, and perhaps as coming from 
England I was welcome to him in his solitude. His wife, an 
English creole — that is, of pure English blood, but born in 
the island — was as hospitable as her husband. They would 
not let me feel that I was a stranger, and set me at my ease 
in a moment with a warmth which was evidently unassumed. 
Captain C. was lame, having hurt his foot. In a day or two 
he hoped to be able to mount his horse again, when we were 
to ride together and see the curiosities. Meanwhile, he talked 
sorrowfully enough of his own situation and the general help- 
lessness of it. A man whose feet are chained and whose 
hands are in manacles is not to be found fault with if he can- 
not use either. He is not intended to use either. The duty 
of an administrator of Dominica, it appears, is to sit still and 
do nothing, and to watch the nickering in the socket of the 
last remains of English influence and authority. Individu- 
ally he was on good terms with every one, with the Catholic 
bishop especially, who, to his regret and mine, was absent at 
the time of my visit. 

His establishment was remarkable ; it consisted of two 
black girls — a cook and a parlourmaid — who ' did every- 
thing,' and ' everything,' I am bound to say, was done well 
enough to please the most fastidious nicety. The cooking 
was excellent. The rooms, which were handsomely fur- 
nished, were kept as well and in as good order as in the 
Churchills' ancestral palace at Blenheim. Dominica has a 
bad name for vermin. I had been threatened with centipedes 
and scorpions in my bedroom. I had been warned there, as 
everywhere in the West Indies, never to walk across a floor 
with bare feet, lest a land crab should lay hold of ray toe or 
a jigger should bite a hole in it, lay its eggs there, and bring 



148 The English in the West Indies. 

me into the hands of the surgeon. Never while I was Cap- 
tain C.'s guest did I see either centipede, or scorpion, or 
jigger, or any other unclean beast in any room of which these 
girls had charge. Even mosquitoes did not trouble me, so 
skilfully and carefully they arranged the curtains. They were 
dressed in the fashion of the French islands, something like 
the Mooi'ish slaves whom one sees in pictures of Eastern 
palaces. They flitted about silent on their shoeless feet, never 
stumbled, or upset chairs or plates or dishes, but waited noise- 
lessly like a pair of elves, and were always in their place when 
wanted. One had heard much of the idleness and careless- 
ness of negro servants. In no part of the globe have I ever 
seen household work done so well by two pairs of hands. 
Of their morals I know nothing. It is usually said that negro 
girls have none. They appeared to me to be perfectly modest 
and innocent. I asked in wonder what wages were paid to 
these black fairies, believing that at no price at all could the 
match of them be found in England. I was informed that 
they had three shillings a week each, and ' found themselves,' 
i.e. found their own food and clothes. And this was above the 
usual rate, as Government House was expected to be liberal. 
The scale of wages may have something to do with the diffi- 
culty of obtaining labour in the West Indies. I could easily 
believe the truth of what I had been often told, that free la- 
bour is more economical to the employer than slave labour. 

The views from the drawing-room windows were enchant- 
ingly beautiful. It is not the form only in these West Indian 
landscapes, or the colour only, but form and colour seen 
through an atmosphere of very peculiar transparency. On 
one side we looked up a mountain gorge, the slopes covered 
with forest ; a bold lofty crag standing out from them brown 
and bare, and the mountain ridge behind half buried in mist. 
From the other window we had the Botanical Gardens, the 
bay beyond them sparkling in the sunshine, and on the 



View from the Gardens. 149 

farther side of it, a few miles off, an island fortress which 
the Marquis de Bouille, of Revolution notoriety, took from 
the English in 1778. The sea stretched out blue and lovely 
under the fringe of sand, box trees, and almonds which grew 
along the edge of the cliff. The air was perfumed by white 
acacia flowers sweeter than orange blossom. 

Captain C. limped down with me into the gardens for a 
fuller look at the scene. Dusky fishermen were busy with 
their nets catching things like herrings, which come in daily 
to the shore to escape the monsters which prey upon them. 
Canoes on the old Carib pattern were slipping along outside, 
trailing lines for kingfish and bonitos. Others were setting 
baskets, like enormous lobster pots or hoop nets — such as we 
use to catch tench in English ponds — these, too, a legacy from 
the Caribs, made of strong tough cane. At the foot of the 
cliff were the smart American schooners which I had seen on 
landing — broad-beamed, shallow, low in the water, with heavy 
spars, which bring Yankee ' notions ' to the islands, and carry 
back to New York bananas and limes and pineapples. There 
they were, models of Tom Cringle's 'Wave,' airy as English 
yachts, and equal to anything from a smuggling cruise to a 
race for a cup. I could have gazed for ever, so beautiful, so 
new, so like a dream it was, had I not been brought back 
swiftly to prose and reality. Suddenly out of a clear sky, 
without notice and without provocation, first a few drops of 
rain fell, and then a deluge which set the gutters running. 
We had to scuttle home under our umbrellas. I was told, 
and I discovered afterwards by fuller experience, that this 
was the way in Dominica, and that if I went out anywhere I 
must be prepared for it. In our retreat we encountered a 
distinguished-looking abbe with a collar and a gold cross, 
who bowed to ray companion. I would gladly have been 
introduced to him, but neither he nor we had leisure for 
courtesies in the torrent Avhich was falling upon us. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Curiosities in Dominica — Nights in the tropics— English and Catholic 
churches — The market place at Roseau — Fishing extraordinary— A 
storm — Dominican hoatmen— Morning walks — Effects of the Lee- 
ward Islands Confederation— An estate cultivated as it ought to be — 
A mountain ride — Leave the island — Reflections. 

There was much to be seen in Dominica of the sort which 
travellers go in search of. There was the hot sulphur spring 
in the mountains ; there was the hot lake ; there was an- 
other volcanic crater; a hollow in the centre of the island 
now filled with water and surrounded with forest ; there 
were the Caribs, some thirty families of them living among 
thickets, through which paths must be cut before we could 
reach them. We could undertake nothing till Captain C. 
could ride again. Distant expeditions can only be attempted 
on horses. They are bred to the work. They climb like 
cats, and step out safely where a fall or a twisted ankle 
would be the probable consequence of attempting to go on 
foot. Meanwhile, Eoseau itself was to be seen and the im- 
mediate neighbourhood, and this I could manage for myself. 
My first night was disturbed by unfamiliar noises and 
strange imaginations. I escaped mosquitoes through the 
care of the black fairies. But mosquito curtains will not 
keep out sounds, and when the fireflies had put out their 
lights there began the singular chorus of tropical midnight. 
Frogs, lizards, bats, croaked, sang, and hissed with no inter- 
mission, careless whether they were in discord or harmon} r . 
The palm branches outside my window swayed in the land 



Night Sounds. 151 

breeze, and the dry branches rustled crisply as if they were 

plates of silver. At intervals came cataracts of rain, and 
above all the rest the deep boom of the cathedral bell tolling 
out the hours like a note of the Old World. The Catholic 
clergy had brought the bells with them as they had brought 
their faith into these new lands. It was pathetic, it was 
ominous music ; for what had we done and what were we 
doing to set beside it in the century for which the island had 
been ours ? Towards morning I heard the tinkle of the bell 
of the convent adjoining the garden calling the nuns to matins. 
Happily in the tropics hot nights do not imply an early dawn. 
The darkness lingers late, sleep comes at last and drowns our 
fancies in forgetfulness. 

The swimming bath was immediately under my room. I 
ventured into it with some trepidation. The basement story 
in most West Indian houses is open, to allow the air free pas- 
sage under them. The space thus left vacant is used for lum- 
ber and rubbish, and, if scorpions or snakes are in the neigh- 
bourhood, is the place where one would look for them. 
There the bath was. I had been advised to be careful, and 
as it was dark this was not easy. The fear, however, was 
worse than the reality. Awkward encounters do happen if 
one is long in these countries ; but they are rare, and seldom 
befall the accidental visitor ; and the plunge into fresh water 
is so delicious that one is willing to risk the chance. 

I wandered out as soon as the sun was over the horizon. 
The cool of the morning is the time to see the people. The 
market girls were streaming into the town with their baskets 
of vegetables on their heads. The fishing boats were out 
again on the bay. Our Anglican church had its bell too as 
well as the cathedral. The door was open, and I went in 
and found a decent-looking clergyman preparing a flock of 
seven or eight blacks and mulattoes for the Communion. He 
was taking them through their catechism, explaining very 



152 The English in the West Indies. 

properly that religion meant doing one's duty, and that it was 
not enough to profess particular opinions. Dominica being 
Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholics not generally appreci- 
ating or understanding the claims of Anglicans to the posses- 
sion of the sacraments, he pointed out where the difference 
lay. He insisted that we had priests as well as they ; we had 
confession ; we had absolution ; only our priests did not 
claim, as the Catholics did, a direct power in themselves to 
forgive sins. Their office was to tell sinners that if they truly 
and sincerely repented and amended their lives God would 
forgive them. What he said was absolutely true ; but I could 
not see in the dim faces of the catechumens that the distinc- 
tion was particularly intelligible to them. If they thought at 
all, they probably reflected that no divinely constituted suc- 
cessor of the Apostles was needed to communicate a truism 
which every sensible person was equally able and entitled to 
tell them. Still the good earnest man meant well, and I 
wished him more success in his missionary enterprise than 
he was likely to find. 

From the Church of England to the great rival establish- 
ment was but a few minutes' walk. The cathedral was five 
times as large, at least, as the building which I had just left 
— old in age, old in appearance, with the usual indifferent 
pictures or coloured prints, with the usual decorated altar, 
but otherwise simple and venerable. There was no service 
going on, for it was a week-day ; a few old men and women 
only were silently saying their prayers. On Sundays I was 
told that it was overflowing. The negro morals are as eman- 
cipated in Dominica as in the rest of the West Indies. Obeah 
is not forgotten ; and along with the Catholic religion goes 
on an active belief in magic and witchcraft. But their relig- 
ion is not necessarily a sham to them ; it was the same in 
Europe in the ages of faith. Even in enlightened Protestant 
countries people calling themselves Christians believe that 



Streets of Roseau. 153 

the spirits of the dead can be called up to amuse an evening 
party. The blacks in this respect are no worse than their 
white kinsmen. The priests have a genuine human hold upon 
them ; they baptise the children ; they commit the dead to 
the cemetery with the promise of immortality ; they are per- 
sonally loved and respected ; and when a young couple marry, 
as they seldom but occasionally do, it is to the priest that 
they apply to tie them together. 

From the cathedral I wandered through the streets of 
Eoseau ; they had been well laid out ; the streets themselves, 
and the roads leading to them from the country, had been 
carefully paved, and spoke of a time when the town had been 
full of life and vigour. But the grass was growing between 
the stones, and the houses generally were dilapidated and 
dirty. A few massive stone buildings there were, on which 
time and rain had made no impression ; but these probably 
were all French — built long ago, perhaps in the days of 
Labat and Madame Ouvernard. The English hand had 
struck the island with paralysis. The British flag was flying 
over the fort, but for once I had no pride in looking at it. 
The fort itself was falling to pieces, like the fort at Grenada. 
The stones on the slope on which it stands had run with the 
blood which we spilt in the winning of it. Dominica had then 
been regarded as the choicest jewel in the necklace of the An- 
tilles. For the last half-century we have left it to desolation, 
as a child leaves a toy that it is tired of. 

In Roseau, as in most other towns, the most interesting 
spot is the market. There you see the produce of the soil ; 
there you see the people that produce it ; and you see them, 
not on show, as in church on Sundays, but in their active 
working condition. The market place at Roseau is a large 
square court close to the sea, well paved, surrounded by ware- 
houses, and luxuriantly shaded by large overhanging trees. 
Under these trees were hundreds of black women, young and 



154 The English in the West Indies. 

old, with their fish and fowls, and fruit and bread, their yams 
and sweet potatoes, their oranges and limes and plantains. 
They had walked in from the country five or ten miles before 
sunrise with their loaded baskets on their heads. They 
would walk back at night with flour or salt fish, or oil, or 
whatever they happened to want. I did not see a single sul- 
len face among them. Their figures were unconscious of lac- 
ing, and their feet of the monstrosities which we call shoes. 
They moved with the lightness and elasticity of leopards. I 
thought that I had never seen in any drawing room in Lon- 
don so many perfectly graceful forms. They could not mend 
their faces, but even in some of these there was a swarthy 
beauty. The hair was hopeless, and they knew it, but they 
turn the defect into an ornament by the coloured handkerchief 
which they twist about their heads, leaving the ends flowing. 
They chattered like jackdaws about a church tower. Two or 
three of the best looking, seeing that I admired them a little, 
used their eyes and made some laughing remarks. They 
spoke in their French patois, clipping off the first and last 
syllables of the words. I but half understood them, and 
could not return their shots. I can only say that if their 
habits were as loose as white people say they are, I did not 
see a single licentious expression either in face or manner. 
They seemed to me lighthearted, merry, innocent young 
women, as free from any thought of evil as the peasant girls 
in Brittany. 

Two middle-aged dames were in a state of violent excite- 
ment about some subject on which they differed in opinion. 
A ring gathered about them, and they declaimed at one an- 
other with fiery volubility. It did not go beyond words ; but 
both were natural orators, throwing their heads back, waving 
their arms, limbs and chest quivering with emotion. There 
was no persona] abuse, or disposition to claw each other. On 
both sides it was a rhetorical outpouring of emotional argu- 



The Market Girls. 155 

merit. One of them, a tall pure blood negress, black as if she 
had just landed from Guinea, began at last to get the best of 
it. Her gesticulations became more imposing. She shook 
her finger. Mandez this, she said, and mandez that, till she 
bore her antagonist down and sent her flying. The audience 
then melted away, and I left the conqueror standing alone 
shooting a last volley at the retreating enemy and making- 
passionate appeals to the universe. The subject of the dis- 
cussion was a curious one. It was on the merits of race. 
The defeated champion had a taint of white blood in her. 
The black woman insisted that blacks were of pure breed, 
and whites were of pure breed. Mulattoes were mongrels, 
not creatures of God at all, but creatures of human wicked- 
ness. I do not suppose that the mulatto was convinced, but 
she accepted her defeat. The conqueror, it was quite clear, 
was satisfied that she had the best of the discussion, and that 
the hearers were of the same opinion. 

From the market I stepped back upon the quay, where I 
had the luck to witness a novel form of fishing, the most sin- 
gular that I have ever fallen in with. I have mentioned the 
herring-sized white fish which come in upon the shore of the 
island. They travel, as most small fish do, in enormous 
shoals, and keep, I suppose, in the shallow waters to avoid 
the kingfish and bonitos, who are good judges in their way, 
and find these small creatures exceptionally excellent. The 
wooden pier ran out perhaps a hundred and fifty feet into 
the sea. It was a platform standing on piles, with openings 
in several places from which stairs led down to landing stages. 
The depth at the extremity was about five fathoms. There 
is little or no tide, the difference between high water and low 
being not more than a couple of feet. Looking down the 
staircases, I saw among the piles in the brilliantly clear 
water unnumbered thousands of the fish which I have de- 
scribed. The fishermen had carried a long net round the 



156 The English in the West Indies. 

platform from shore to shore, completely inclosing it. The 
fish were shut in, and had no means of escape except at the 
shore end, where boys were busy driving them back with 
stones ; but how the net was to be drawn among the piles, 
or what was to be done next, I was curious to learn. I was 
not left long to conjecture. A circular bag net was produced, 
made of fine strong thread, coloured a light green, and 
almost invisible in the sea. "When it was spread, one side 
could be left open and could be closed at will by a running 
line from above. This net was let carefully down between 
the piles, and was immediately swollen out by the current 
which runs along the coast into a deep bay. Two young 
blacks then dived ; one saw them swimming about under 
water like sharks, hunting the fish before them as a dog 
would hunt a flock of sheep. Their companions, who were 
watching from the platform, waited till they saw as many 
driven into the purse of the inner net as they could trust the 
meshes to bear the weight of. The cord was then drawn. 
The net was closed. Net and all that it contained were 
hoisted into a boat, carried ashore and emptied. The net 
itself was then brought back and spread again for a fresh 
haul. In this way I saw as many fish caught as would have 
filled a large cart. The contrivance, I believe, is one more 
inheritance from the Caribs, whom Labat describes as doing 
something of a similar kind. 

Another small incident happened a day or two after, which 
showed the capital stuff of which the Dominican boatmen 
and fishermen are made. They build their own vessels large 
and small, and sail them themselves, not afraid of the wildest 
weather, and doing the local trade with Martinique and 
Guadaloupe. Four of these smacks, cutter-rigged, from ten 
to twenty tons burden, I had seen lying at anchor one even- 
ing with an American schooner under the gardens. In the 
niffht, the off-shore wind rose into one of those short violent 



Dominican Boatmen. 157 

tropical storms which if they lasted longer would be called 
hurricanes, but in these winter months are soon over. It 
came on at midnight, and lasted for two hours. The noise 
woke me, for the house shook, and the roar was like Niagara. 
It was too dark, however, to see anything. It died away at 
last, and I slept till daybreak. My first thought on waking 
was for the smacks and the schooner. Had they sunk at 
their moorings ? Had they broken loose, or what had become 
of them ? I got up and went down to the cliff to see. The 
damage to the trees had been less than I expected. A few 
torn branches lay on the lawn and the leaves were cast 
about, but the anchorage was empty. Every vessel of every 
sort and size w r as gone. There was still a moderate gale 
blowing. As the wind was off-shore the sea was tolerably 
smooth for a mile or two, but outside the waves were break- 
ing violently, and the foam scuds were whirling off their 
crests. The schooner was about four miles off, beating back 
under storm canvas, making good weather of it and promis- 
ing in a tack or two to recover the moorings. The smacks, 
being less powerful vessels, had been driven farther out to 
sea. Three of them I saw labouring heavily in the offing. 
The fourth I thought at first had disappeared altogether, but 
finally I made out a white speck on the horizon which I sup- 
posed to be the missing cutter. One of the first three pres- 
ently dropped away to leeward, and I lost sight of her. The 
rest made their way back in good time. Towards the after- 
noon when the wind had gone down the two that remained 
came in after them, and before night they were all in their 
places again. 

The gale had struck them at about midnight. Their cables 
had parted, and they had been blown away to sea. The 
crews of the schooner and of three of the cutters were all on 
board. They got their vessels under command, and had been 
in no serious danger. In the fourth there was no one but a 



158 The English, in the West Indies. 

small black boy of the island. He had been asleep, and woke 
to find himself driving before the wind. In an hour or two 
he would have been beyond the shelter of the land, and in 
the high seas which then were running must have been inevi- 
tably swamped. The little fellow contrived in the darkness 
— no one could tell how — to set a scrap of his mainsail, get 
his staysail up, and in this condition to lie head to the wind. 
So handled, small cutters, if they have a deck over them, can 
ride out an ordinary gale in tolerable security. They drift, 
of course ; in a hurricane the only safety is in yielding to it ; 
but they make fair resistance, and the speed is checked. 
The most practical seaman could have done no better than 
this boy. He had to wait for help in the morning. He was 
not strong enough to set his canvas properly, and work his 
boat home. He would have been driven out at last, and as 
he had neither food nor water would have been starved had 
he escaped drowning. But his three consorts saw him. 
They knew how it was, and one of them went back to his as- 
sistance. 

I have known the fishing boys of the English Channel all 
my life ; they are generally skilful, ready, and daring beyond 
their years ; but I never knew one lad not more than thirteen 
or fourteen years old who, if woke out of his sleep by a hur- 
ricane in a dark night and alone, would have understood so 
well what to do, or have done it so effectually. There are 
plenty more of such black boys in Dominica, and they de- 
serve a better fate than to be sent drifting before constitu- 
tional whirlwinds back into barbarism, because we, on whom 
their fate depends, are too ignorant or too careless to provide 
them with a tolerable government. 

The kind Captain Churchill, finding himself tied to his 
chair, and wishing to give me every assistance towards seeing 
the island, had invited a Creole gentleman from the other side 
of it to stay a few days with us. Mr. F , a man about 



Walks in the Neighbourhood. 159 

thirty, was one of the few survivors from among the planters ; 
he had never been out of the "West Indies, but was a man of 
honesty and intelligence, could use his eyes, and form sound 
judgments on subjects which immediately concerned him. I 
had studied Roseau for myself. "With Mr. F for a com- 
panion, I made acquaintance with the environs. We started 
for our walks at daybreak, in the cool of the morning. We 
climbed cliffs, we rambled on the rich levels about the river, 
once richly cultivated, and even now the soil is luxuriant in 
neglect ; a few canefields still survive, but most of them are 
turned to other uses, and you pass wherever you go the ruins 
of old mills, the massive foundations of ancient warehouses, 
huge hewn stones built and mortared well together, telling 
what once had been ; the mango trees, which the owners had 
planted, waving green over the wrecks of their forgotten in- 
dustry. Such industry as is now to be found is, as elsewhere 
in general, the industry of the black peasantry. It is the 
same as in Grenada : the whites, or the English part of them, 
have lost heart, and cease to struggle against the stream. A 
state of things more hopelessly provoking was never seen. 
Skill and capital and labour have only to be brought to bear 
together, and the land might be a Garden of Eden. All 
precious fruits, and precious spices, and gums, and plants of 
rarest medicinal virtues will spring and grow and flourish for 
the asking. The limes are as large as lemons, and in the 
markets of the United States are considered the best in the 
world. 

As to natural beauty, the West Indian Islands are like 
Scott's novels, where we admire most the one which we have 
read the last. But Dominica bears the palm away from all of 
them. One morning Mr. F took me a walk up the Ro- 
seau River, an ample stream even in what is called the dry 
season, with deep pools full of eels and mullet. We entered 
among the hills which were rising steep above us. The val- 



160 The English in the West Indies. 

ley grew deeper, or rather there were a series of valleys, 
gorges dense with forest, which had been torn out by the 
cataracts. The path was like the mule tracks of the Alps, cut 
in other days along the sides of the precipices with remnants 
of old conduits which supplied water to the mills below. 
Eich odorous acacias bent over us. The flowers, the trees, 
the birds, the insects, were a maze of perfume and loveliness. 
Occasionally some valley opposite the sun would be spanned 
by a rainbow as the rays shone through a morning shower out 
of the blue sky. We wandered on and on, wading through 
tributary brooks, stopping every minute to examine some 
new fern or plant, peasant women and children meeting us at 
intervals on their way into the town. There were trees to take 
shelter under when indispensable, -which even the rain of 
Dominica could not penetrate. The levels at the bottom of 
the valleys and the lower slopes, where the soil was favourable, 
were carelessly planted with limes which were in full bearing. 
Small black boys and girls went about under the trees, gath- 
ering the large lemon-shaped fruit which lay on the ground 
thick as apples in a West of England orchard. Here was all 
this profusion of nature, lavish beyond all example, and the 
enterprising youth of England were neglecting a colony 
which might yield them wealth beyond, the treasures of the 
old sugar planters, going to Florida, to Texas, to South 
America, taking their energy and their capital to the land of 
the foreigner, leaving Dominica, which might be the garden 
of the world, a precious emerald set in the ring of their own 
Antilles, enriched by the sacred memories of glorious English 
achievements, as if such a place had no existence. Dominica 
would surrender herself to-morrow with a light heart to 
Prance, to America, to any country which would accept the 
charge of her destinies. Why should she care any more for 
England, which has so little care for her? Beauties conscious 
of their charms do not like to be so thrown aside. There is 



English Mule. 161 

no dislike to us among the blacks, they are indifferent, but 
even their indifference would be changed into loyalty if we 
made the slightest effort to recover it. The poor black was a 
faithful servant as long as he was a slave. As a freeman he is 
conscious of his inferiority at the bottom of his heart, and 
would attach himself to a rational white enqiloyer with at 
least as much fidelity as a spaniel. Like the spaniel, too, if 
he is denied the chance of developing under guidance the 
better qualities which are in him, he will drift back into a 
mangy cur. 

In no country ought a government to exist for which re- 
spect is impossible, and English rule as it exists in Dominica 
is a subject for a comedy. The Governor-General of the 
Leeward Islands resides in Antigua, and in theory ought to 
go on progress and visit in turn his subordinate dominions. 
His visits are rare as those of angels. The eminent person, 
who at present holds that high office, has been once in Nevis ; 
and thrice in Dominica, but only for the briefest stay there. 
Perhaps he has held aloof in consequence of an adventure 
which befell a visiting governor some time ago on one of 
these occasions. "When there is a constitution there is an 
opposition. If there are no grievances the opposition manu- 
facture them, and the inhabitants of Roseau were persuaded 
that they were an oppressed people and required fuller lib- 
erties. I was informed that His Excellency had no sooner 
landed and taken possession of Government House, than a 
mob of men and women gathered in the market place under 
the leadership of their elected representative. The girls that 
I had admired very likely made a part of it. They swarmed 
up into the gardens, they demonstrated under the windows, 
laughing, shouting, and petitioning. His Excellency first 
barricaded the doors, then opened them and tried a speech, 
telling the dear creatures how much he loved and respected 
them. Probably they did not understand him, as few of 
11 



162 The English in the West Indies. 

them speak English. Producing no effect, he retreated 
again, barred the door once more, slipped out at a back 
entrance down a lane to the port, took refuge on board his 
steamer, and disappeared. So the story was told me — not 
by the administrator, who Avas not a man to turn English 
authority into ridicule — but by some one on the spot, who 
repeated the current report of the adventure. It may be ex- 
aggerated in some features, but it represents, at any rate, the 
feeling of the place towards the head representative of the 
existing government. 

I will mention another incident, said to have occurred still 
more recently to one of these great persons, very like what 
befell Sancho Panza in Barataria. This, too, may have been 
wickedly turned, but it was the subject of general talk and 
general amusement on board the steamers which make the 
round of the Antilles. Universal belief is a fact of its kind, 
and though it tends to shape itself in dramatic form more 
completely than the facts justify, there is usually some truth 
at the bottom of it. The telegrams to the West Indies pass 
through New York, and often pick up something on the way. 
A warning message reached a certain colony that a Yankee- 
Irish schooner with a Fenian crew was coming down to annex 
the island, or at least to kidnap the governor. This distin- 
guished gentleman ought perhaps to have suspected that a 
joke was being played upon his fears ; but he was a landlord. 
A governor-general had been threatened seriously in Canada, 
why not he in the Antilles? He was as much agitated as 
Sancho himself. All these islands were and are entirely un- 
defended save by a police which cannot be depended on to re- 
sist a desperate invasion. They were called out. Eumour 
said that in half the rifles the cartridges were found afterwards 
inverted. The next day dispelled the alarm. The schooner 
was the creation of some Irish telegraph clerk, and the scare 
ended in laughter. But under the jest lies the wretched cer- 



Effects of Confederation. 163 

tainty that the Antilles have no protection except in their 
own population, and so little to thank England for that 
scarcely one of the inhabitants, except the officials, would lift 
a finger to save the connection. 

Once more, I tell these stories not as if they were authenti- 
cated facts, but as evidence of the scornful feeling towards 
English authority. The current belief in them is a fact of a 
kind and a very serious one. 

The confederation of the Leeward Islands may have been a 
convenience to the Colonial Office, and may have allowed a 
slight diminution in the cost of administration. The whole 
West Indies might be placed under a single governor with 
only good results if he were a real one like the Governor- 
General at Calcutta. But each single island has lost from the 
change, so far, more than it has gained. Each ship of war 
has a captain of its own and officers of its own trained spe- 
cially for the service. If the Antilles are ever to thrive, each 
of them also should have some trained and skilful man at its 
head, unembarrassed by local elected assemblies. The whites 
have become so weak that they would welcome the aboli- 
tion of such assemblies. The blacks do not care for politics, 
and would be pleased to see them swept away to-morrow if 
they were governed wisely and fairly. Of course, in that 
case it would be necessary to appoint governors who would 
command confidence and respect. But let governors be sent 
who would be governors indeed, like those who administer 
the Indian presidencies, and the white residents would gather 
heart again, and English and American capitalists would 
bring their money and their enterprise, and the blacks would 
grow upwards instead of downwards. Let us persist in the 
other line, let us use the West Indian governments as asylums 
for average worthy persons who have to be provided for, and 
force on them black parliamentary institutions as a remedy 
for such persons' inefficiency, and these beautiful countries 



164 The English in the West Indies. 

will become like Hayti, with Obeah triumphant, and children 
offered to the devil and salted and eaten, till the conscience of 
mankind wakes again and the Americans sweep them all 
away. 

I had an opportunity of seeing what can really be done in 
Dominica by an English gentleman who has gone the right 
way to work there. Dr. Nicholls came out a few years ago 
to Roseau as a medical officer. He was described to me as a 
man not only of high professional skill, but with considerable 
scientific attainments. Either by purchase or legacy (I think 
the latter) he had become possessed of a small estate on a 
hillside a mile or two from the town. He had built a house 
upon it. He was cultivating the soil on scientific principles, 
and had politely sent me an invitation to call on him and see 
what he was about. I was delighted to avail myself of such an 
opportunity. 

I do not know the exact extent of the property which was 
under cultivation ; perhaps it was twenty-five or thirty acres. 
The chief part of it was planted with lime trees, the limes 
which I saw growing being as large as moderate-sized lem- 
ons ; most of the rest was covered with Liberian coffee, which 
does not object to the moist climate, and was growing with 
profuse luxuriance. Each tree, each plant had been person- 
ally attended to, pruned when it needed pruning, supjwrted 
by bamboos if it was overgrowing its strength, while the 
ground about the house was consecrated to botanical experi- 
ments, and specimens were to be seen there of every tropical 
flower, shrub, or tree, which was either remarkable for i's 
beauty or valuable for its chemical properties. His limes and 
coffee went principally to New York, where they had won a 
reputation, and were in special demand ; but ingenuity tries 
other tracks besides the beaten one. Dr. Nicholls had a 
manufactory of citric acid which had been found equally ex- 
cellent in E.irope. Everything which he produced was turn- 



Capabilities of the Soil. 1G5 

ing to gold, except donkeys, seven or eight of which were 
feeding under his windows, and which multiplied so fast that 
he could not tell what to do with them. 

Industries so various and so active required labour, and I 
saw many of the blacks at work with him. In apparent con- 
tradiction to the general West Indian experience, he told me 
that he had never found a difficulty about it. He paid them 
fair wages, and paid them regularly without the overseer's 
fines and drawbacks. He knew one from the other person- 
ally, could call each by his name, remembered where he came 
from, where he lived, and how, and could joke with him 
about his wife or mistress. They in consequence clung to 
him with an innocent affection, stayed with him all the week 
without asking for holidays, and worked with interest and 
goodwill. Four years only had elapsed since Dr. Nicholls 
commenced his undertakings, and he already saw his way to 
clearing a thousand pounds a year on that one small patch 
of acres. I may mention that, being the only man in the 
island of really superior attainments, he had tried in vain 
to win one of the seats in the elective part of the legislature. 

There was nothing particularly favourable in the situation 
of his land. All parts of Dominica would respond as will- 
ingly to similar treatment. What could be the reason, Dr. 
Nicholls asked me, why young Englishmen went planting to 
so many other countries, went even to Ceylon and Borneo, 
while comparatively at their own doors, within a fortnight's 
sail of Plymouth, there was this island immeasurably more 
fertile than either? The explanation, I suppose, is the mis- 
giving that the West Indies are consigned by the tendencies 
of English policy to the black population, and that a local gov- 
ernment created by representatives of the negro vote would 
make a residence there for an energetic and self-respecting 
European less tolerable than in any other part of the globe. 
The republic of Hayti not only excludes a white man from 



160 The English in the West Indies. 

any share of the administration, but forbids his acquisition 
or possession of real property in any form. Far short 
of such extreme provisions, the most prosperous industry 
might be blighted by taxation. Self-government is a beauti- 
ful subject for oratorical declamation. If the fact corre- 
sponded to the theory and if the possession of a vote pro- 
duced the elevating effects upon the character which are so 
noisily insisted upon, it would be the welcome panacea for 
political and social disorder. Unfortunately the fact does 
not correspond to the theory. The possession of a vote 
never improved the character of any human being and never 
will. 

There are many islands in the West Indies, and an experi- 
ment might be ventured without any serious risk. Let the 
suffrage principle be applied in its fulness where the con- 
dition of the people seems best to promise success. In some 
one of them — Dominica would do as well as any other — let a 
man of ability and character with an ambition to distinguish 
himself be sent to govern with a free hand. Let him choose 
his own advisers, let him be untrammelled, unless he falls 
into fatal and inexcusable errors, with interference from 
home. Let him have time to carry out any plans which he 
may form, without fear of recall at the end of the normal 
period. After ten or fifteen years, let the results of the two 
systems be compared side by side. I imagine the objection 
to such a trial would be the same which was once made in 
my hearing by an Irish friend of mine, who was urging on 
an English statesman the conversion of Ireland into a 
Crown colony. ' You dare not try it,' he said, ' for if you 
did, in twenty years we would be the most prosperous isl- 
and of the two, and you would be wanting to follow our 
example.' 

We had exhausted the neighbourhood of Roseau. After a 
few days Captain C. was again able to ride, and we could 



A Mountain Hide. 167 

undertake more extended expeditions. He provided me with 
a horse or pony or something between both, a creature that 
would climb a stone staircase at an angle of fort} r -five, or slide 
down a clay slope soaked by a tropical shower, with the same 
indifference with which it would canter along a meadow. In 
the slave times cultivation had been carried up into the 
mountains. There Avere the old tracks through the forest 
engineered along the edges of precipices, torrents roaring 
far down below, and tall green trees standing in hollows 
underneath, whose top branches were on a level with our 
eyes. We had to ride with macintosh and umbrella, pre- 
pared at any moment to have the floods descend upon us. 
The best costume would be none at all. While the sun is 
above the horizon the island seems to lie under the arches of 
perpetual rainbows. One gets wet and one dries again, and 
one is none the worse for the adventure. I had heard that it 
was dangerous. It did no harm to me. A very particular 
object was to reach the crest of the mountain ridge which 
divides Dominica down the middle. We saw the peaks high 
above us, but it was useless to try the ascent if one could see 
nothing when one arrived, and mists and clouds hung about 
so persistently that we had to put off our expedition day 
after day. 

A tolerable morning came at last. We started early. A 
faithful black youth ran alongside of the horses to pick us 
up if we fell, and to carry the indispensable luncheon basket. 
We rode through the town, over the bridge and by the foot 
of Dr. Nicholls's plantations. We passed through lime and 
banana gardens rising slowly along the side of a glen above 
the river. The road had been made by the French long ago, 
and went right across the island. It had once been carefully 
paved, but wet and neglect had loosened the stones and tum- 
bled them out of their places. Trees had driven their roots 
through the middle of the track. Mountain streams had 



168 The English in the West Indies. 

taken advantage of convenient cuttings and scooped them 
into waterways. The road commissioner on the official staff 
seemed a merely ornamental functionary. We could only 
travel at a foot pace and in single file. Happily our horses 
were used to it. Along this road in 1805 Sir George Prevost 
retreated with the English garrison of Roseau, when attacked 
in force from Martinique ; saved his men and saved the other 
part of the island till relief came and the invaders were 
driven out again. That was the last of the fighting, and we 
have been left since in undisturbed possession. Dominica 
was then sacred as the scene of Rodney's glories. Now I 
suppose, if the French came again, we should calculate the 
mercantile value of the place to us, and having found it to be 
nothing at all, might conclude that it would be better to let 
them keep it. 

"We went up and up, winding round projecting spurs of 
mountain, here and there coming on plateaus where pio- 
neering blacks were clearing patches of forest for their yams 
and coffee. We skirted the edge of a valley several miles 
across, on the far side of which we saw the steaming of the 
sulphur springs, and beyond and above it a mountain peak 
four thousand feet high and clothed with timber to the sum- 
mit. In most countries the vegetation grows thin as you rise 
into the higher altitudes. Here the bush only seems to grow 
denser, the trees grander and more self-asserting, the orchids 
and parasites on the boughs more variously brilliant. There 
were tree ferns less splendid than those in New Zealand and 
Australia, but larger than any one can see in English hot- 
houses, wild oranges bending under the weight of ripe fruit 
which was glowing on their branches, wild pines, wild be- 
gonias scattered along the banks, and a singularly brilliant 
plant which they call the wild plantain, but is not a plantain 
at all, with large broad pointed leaves radiating out from a 
centre like an aloe's, and a crimson flower stem rising up 



A Mountain Ride. 1G9 

straight in the middle. It was startling to see such insolent 
beauty displaying itself indifferently in the heart of the wil- 
derness with no human eye to look at it unless of some pass- 
ing black or wandering Carib. 

The track had been carried across hot streams fresh from 
boiling springs, and along the edge of chasms where there 
was scarcely foothold for the horses. At length we found 
ourselves on what was apparently the highest point of the 
pass. We could not see where we were for the trees and 
bushes which surrounded us, but the path began to descend 
on the other side. Near the summit was a lake formed in an 
old volcanic crater which we had come specially to look at. 
We descended a few hundred feet into a hollow among the 
hills where the lake was said to be. Where was it, then ? I 
asked the guide, for I could discover nothing that suggested 
a lake or anything like one. He pointed into the bush where 
it was thicker with tropical undergrowth than a wheatfield 
with ears of corn. If I cared to creep below the branches for 
two hundred yards at the risk of meeting snakes, scorpions, 
and other such charming creatures, I should find myself on 
the water's edge. 

To ride up a mountain three thousand feet high, to be near 
a wonder which I could not see after all, was not what I had 
proposed to myself. There was a traveller's rest at the point- 
where we halted, a cool damp grotto carved into the sand- 
stone ; we picketed our horses, cutting leafy boughs off the 
trees for them, and making cushions for ourselves out of the 
ferns. We were told that if we walked on for half a mile we 
should see the other side of the island, and if we were lucky 
we might catch a glimpse of the lake. Meanwhile clouds 
rolled down off the mountains, filled the hollow where we 
stood, and so wrapped us in mist, that the question seemed 
rather how we were to return than whether we should venture 
farther. 



170 The English in the West Indies. 

While we were considering what to do, we heard steps 
approaching- through the fog, and a party of blacks came 
up on their way to Eoseau with a sick companion whom 
they were carrying in a palanquin. We were eating our 
luncheon in the grotto, and they stopped to talk to our 
guide and stare at us. Two of them, a lad and a girl, came 
up closer to me than good manners would have allowed if 
they had possessed such things ; the ' I am as good as 
you, and you will be good enough to know it,' sort of tone 
which belongs to these democratic days showing itself 
rather notably in the rising generation in parts of these 
islands. I defended myself with producing a sketch book 
and proceeding to take their likenesses, on which they fled 
precipitately. 

Our sandwiches finished, we were pensively consuming our 
cigars, I speculating on Sir George Prevost and his party of 
redcoats who must have bivouacked on that very spot, when 
the clouds broke and the sun came out. The interval was 
likely to be a short one, so we hurried to our feet, walked rap- 
idly on, and at a turn of the path where a hurricane had torn 
a passage through the trees, we caught a sight of our lake as 
we had been told that perhaps we might do. It lay a couple 
of hundred feet beneath us deep and still, winding awa}' round 
a promontory under the crags and woods of the opposite hills : 
they call it a crater, and I suppose it may have been one, for 
the whole island shows traces of violent volcanic disturbance, 
but in general a crater is a bowl, and this was like a reach of 
a river, which lost itself before one could see where it ended. 
They told us that in old times, when troops were in the fort, 
and the white men of the island went about and enjoyed 
themselves, there were boats on this lake, and parties came 
up and fished there. Now it was like the pool in the gar- 
dens of the palace of the sleeping princess, guarded by im- 
penetrable thickets, and whether there are fish there, or 



A Mountain Ride. 171 

enchanted princesses or the huts of some tribe of Caribs, 
hiding in those fastnesses from negroes whom they hate, 
or from white men whom they do not love, no one knows 
or cares to know. I made a hurried pencil sketch, and we 
went on. 

A little farther and we were out of the bush, at a rocky 
terrace on the rim of the great valley which carries the rain- 
fall on the eastern side of the mountains down into the Atlan- 
tic. We were 3,000 feet above the sea. Far away the ocean 
stretched out before us, the horizon line where sky met water 
so far distant that both had melted into mist at the point 
where they touched. Mount Diablot, where Labat spent a 
night catching the devil birds, soared up on our left hand. 
Below, above, around us, it was forest everywhere ; forest, 
and only forest, a land fertile as Adam's paradise, still waiting 
for the day Avhen ' the barren woman shall bear children.' 
Of course it was beautiful, if that be of any consequence — 
mountain peaks and crags and falling waters, and the dark 
green of the trees in the foreground, dissolving from tint to 
tint to grey, violet, and blue in the far-off distance. Even at 
the height where we stood, the temperature must have been 
70°. But the steaming damp of the woods was gone, the air 
was clear and exhilarating as champagne. What a land ! 
And what were we doing with it ? This fair inheritance, won 
by English hearts and hands for the use of the working men 
of England, and the English working men lying squalid in 
the grimy alleys of crowded towns, and the inheritance 
turned into a wilderness. Visions began to rise of what 
might be, but visions which were taken from me before 
they could shape themselves. The curtain of vapour fell 
down over us again and all was gone, and of that glori- 
ous picture nothing was left but our own two selves and 
the few yards of red rock and soil on which we were stand- 



172 The English in the West Indies. 

There was no need for haste now. We returned slowly to 
our horses, and our horses carried us home by the way that 
we had come. Captain C. went carelessly in front through 
the fog, over boulders and watercourses and roots of fallen 
trees. I followed as I could, expecting every moment to find 
myself flying over my horse's head ; stumbling, plunging, 
sliding, but getting through with it somehow. The creature 
had never seen me before, but was as careful of my safety as 
if I had been an old acquaintance and friend. Only one 
misadventure befell me, if misadventure it may be called. 
Shaken, and damp with heat, I was riding under a wild 
orange tree, the fruit within reach of my hand. I picked 
an orange and plunged my teeth into the skin, and I 
had to remember my rashness for days. The oil in the 
rind, pungent as aromatic salts, rushed on my palate, and 
spurted on my face and eyes. The smart for the moment 
half blinded me. I bethought me, however, that oranges 
with such a flavour would be worth something, and a 
box of them which was sent home for me was converted 
into marmalade with a finer flavour than ever came from 
Seville. 

What more can I say of Dominica ? I stayed with the hos- 
pitable C.'s for a fortnight. At the appointed time the re- 
turning steamer called for me. I left Captain C. with a 
warm hope that he might not be consigned for ever to a post 
which an English gentleman ought not to be condemned to 
occupy ; that if matters could not be mended for him where 
he stood, he might find a situation where his courage and his 
understanding might be turned to useful purpose. I can 
never forget the kindness both of himself and his clever, 
good, graceful lady. I cannot forget either the two dusky 
damsels who waited upon me like spirits in a fairy tale. It 
was night when I left. The packet came alongside the 
wharf. We took leave by the gleaming of her lights. The 



Reflections on English Administration. 173 

whistle screamed, and Dominica, and all that I had seen, 
faded into a memory. All that I had seen, but not all that 
I had thought. That island was the scene of the most glori- 
ous of England's many famous actions. It had been won for 
its again and again by the gallantry of our seamen and sol- 
diers. It had been secured at last to the Crown by the 
genius of the greatest of our admirals. It was once pros- 
perous. It might be prosperous again, for the resources 
of the soil are untouched and inexhaustible. The black 
population are exceptionally worthy. They are excellent 
boatmen, excellent fishermen, excellent mechanics, ready 
to undertake any work if treated with courtesy and kind- 
ness. Yet in our hands it is falling into ruin. The influ- 
ence of England there is gone. It is nothing. Indifference 
has bred indifference in turn as a necessary consequence. 
Something must be wrong when among 30,000 of our fel- 
low-subjects not one could be found to lift a hand for us 
if the island were invaded, when a boat's crew from Mar- 
tinique might take possession of it without a show of re- 
sistance. 

If I am asked the question, What use is Dominica to us ? 
I decline to measure it by present or possible marketable 
value ; I answer simply that it is part of the dominions of the 
Queen. If we pinch a finger, the smart is felt in the brain. 
If we neglect a wound in the least important part of our 
persons, it may poison the system. Unless the blood of an 
organised body circulates freely through the extremities, the 
extremities mortify and drop off, and the dropping off of any 
colony of ours will not be to our honour and may be to our 
shame. Dominica seems but a small thing, but our larger 
colonies are observing us, and the world is observing us, and 
what we do or fail to do works beyond the limits of its 
immediate operation. The mode of management which 
produces the state of things which I have described cannot 



174 The English in the West Indies. 

possibly be a right one. We have thought it wise, with a 
perfectly honest intention, to leave our dependencies gen- 
erally to work out their own salvation. We have excepted 
India, for with India we dare not run the risk. But we have 
refused to consider that others among our possessions may 
be in a condition analogous to India, and we have allowed 
them to drift on as they could. It was certainly excusable, 
and it may have been prudent, to try popular methods first, 
but we have no right to persist in the face of a failure so 
complete. We are obliged to keep these islands, for it seems 
that no one will relieve us of them ; and if they are to re- 
main ours, we are bound so to govern them that our name 
shall be respected and our sovereignty shall not be a mock- 
ery. Am I asked what should be done ? I have answered 
already. Among the silent thousands whose quiet work 
keeps the Empire alive, find a Rajah Brooke if you can, or a 
Mr. Smith of Scilly. If none of these are attainable, even a 
Sancho Panza would do. Send him out with no more in- 
structions than the knight of La Mancha gave Sancho — to 
fear God and do his duty. Put him on his metal. Promise 
him the respect and praise of all good men if he does well ; 
and if he calls to his help intelligent persons who under- 
stand the cultivation of soils and the management of men, 
in half a score of years Dominica would be the brightest 
gem of the Antilles. From America, from England, from 
all parts of the world, admiring tourists would be flocking 
there to see what Government could do, and curious poli- 
ticians with jealous eyes admitting reluctantly unwelcome 
conclusions. 

Woman ! no mortal o'er tlie widespread earth 

Can find a fault in thee ; thy good report 

Doth reach the widespread heaven, as of some prince 

Who, in the likeness of a god, doth rule 

O'er subjects stout of heart and strong of hand ; 



Reflections on English Administration. Yi§ 

And men speak greatly of him, and his land 
Bears wheat and rye, his orchards bend with fruit, 
His flocks breed surely, the sea yields her fish, 
Because he guides his folk with wisdom. And they grow 
In grace and manly virtue. ' 

Because 'be guides with wisdom.' That is the whole 
secret. The leading of the wise few, the willing obedience 
of the many, is the beginning and the end of all right action. 
Secure this, and you secure everything. Fail to secure it 
and be your liberties as wide as you can make them, no suc- 
cess is possible. 

1 S> yvvcu, oi/K av rls o~e fipoTwi' eV aireipova yaiav 
veiKeoi • -Tj yap crev K\eos ovpavov evpvv iKavei ' 
wcrre rev ■)) /3aciA'/}os afj.vjj.ovos, hare Oeovfi^s 
dvfipaaiv eV iro\\olo~i Kal Icpdi/xoiaiv d.vdo~o~u>v y 
euSitcias dvix 7 ) ' 1 ' <p*pVO~i 8e ya?a yUe'Aaua 
irvpovs Kal Kpidds, fiplQ-r)m 8e SevSpea Kapircp, 
TiKrei 8' e/iLireSa /xrjAa, 6d\aaaa Se napexei *X^ S > 
e| euTjyeo-njs ' dperooo'i Se Aaol vir avrov. — Odyssey, xix. 107. 



CHAPTEK XH. 

The Darien canal — Jamaica mail packet — Captain W. — Retrospect of 
Jamaican history — Waterspout at sea — Hayti — Jacmel — A walk 
through the town — A Jamaican planter -First sight of the Blue 
Mountains — Port Royal — Kingston — The Colonial Secretary — Gordon 
riots — Changes in the Jamaican constitution. 

Once more to Barbadoes, but merely to change there from 
steamer to steamer. My course was now across the Carib- 
bean Sea to the great islands at the bottom of it. The Eng- 
lish mail, after calling and throwing off its lateral branches at 
Bridgetown, pursues its direct course to Hayti by Jamaica, 
and so on to Vera Cruz and the Darien Canal. This wonder- 
fid enterprise of M. Lesseps has set moving the loose negro 
population of the Antilles and Jamaica. Unwilling to work 
as they are supposed to be, they have swarmed down to the 
isthmus, and are still swarmiug thither in tens of thousands, 
tempted by the dollar or dollar and a half a day which M. 
Lesseps is furnishing. The vessel which called for us at 
Dominica was crowded with them, and we picked up more 
as we went on. Their average stay is for a year. At the end 
of a year half of them have gone to the other world. Half go 
home, made easy for life with money enough to buy a few 
acres of land and 'live happy ever after.' Heedless as school- 
boys, they plunge into the enterprise, thinking of nothing 
but the haiwest of dollars. They might earn as much or 
more at their own doors if there were any one to employ 
them, but quiet industry is out of joint, and Darien has seized 
their imaginations as an Eldorado. 



The Darien Canal. 177 

If half the reports which reached me are correct, in all the 
world there is not perhaps now concentrated in any single 
spot so much swindling and villany, so much foul disease, 
such a hideous dungheap of moral and physical abomination, 
as in the scene of this far-famed undertaking of nineteenth- 
century engineering. By the scheme, as it was first pro- 
pounded, six-and-twenty millions of English money were to 
unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to form a highway for 
the commerce of the globe, and enrich with untold w T ealth the 
happy owners of original shares. The thrifty French peas- 
antry were tempted by the golden bait, and poured their sav- 
ings into M. Lessep's lottery box. Almost all that money, I 
was told, has been already sj>ent, and only a fifth of the work 
is done. Meanwhile the human vultures have gathered to 
the spoil. Speculators, adventurers, card sharpers, hell 
keepers, and doubtful ladies have carried their charms to 
this delightful market. The scene of operations is a damp 
tropical jungle, intensely hot, swarming with mosquitoes, 
snakes, alligators, scorpions, and centipedes ; the home, even 
as nature made it, of yellow fever, typhus, and dysentery, and 
now made immeasurably more deadly by the multitudes of 
people who crowd thither. Half buried in mud lie about the 
wrecks of costly machinery, consuming by rust, sent out 
under lavish orders, and found unfit for the work for which 
they were intended. Unburied altogether lie also skeletons 
of the human machines which have broken down there,, 
picked clean by the vultures. Everything which imagination 
can conceive that is ghastly and loathsome seems to be gath- 
ered into that locality just now. I w r as pressed to go on and 
look at the moral surroundings of ' the greatest undertaking 
of our age,' but my curiosity was less strong than my disgust. 
I did not see the place, and the description which I have given 
may be overcharged. The accounts which reached me, how- 
ever, were uniform and consistent. Not one person whom I 
12 



178 The English in the West Indies. 

met and who could speak from personal knowledge had any 
other story to tell. 

We looked again into St. Lucia on our way. The train- 
ing squadron was lying outside, and the harbour was covered 
with boats full of blue-jackets. The big ships were rolling 
heavily. They could have eaten up Rodney's fleet. The 
great 'Ville de Paris' would have been a mouthful to the 
smallest of them. Man for man officers and crew, were as 
good as Rodney ever commanded. Yet, somehow, they 
produce small effect on the imagination of the colonists. 
The impression is that they are meant more for show than 
for serious use. Alas ! the stars and stripes on a Yankee 
trader have more to say in the West Indies than the white 
ensigns of a fleet of British ironclads. 

At Barbadoes there was nothing more for me to do or see. 
The English mail was on the point of sailing, and I hastened 
on board. One does not realise distance on maps. Jamaica 
belongs to the West Indies, and the West Indies are a col- 
lective entity. Yet it is removed from the Antilles by the 
diameter of the Caribbean Sea, and is farther off than Gib- 
raltar from Southampton. Thus it was a voyage of several 
days, and I looked about to see who were to be my com- 
panions. There were several Spaniards, one or two English 
tourists, and some ladies who never left their cabins. The 
captain was the most remarkable figure : an elderly man 
with one eye lost or injured, the other as peremptory as I 
have often seen in a human face ; rough and prickly on the 
outside as a pineapple, internally very much resembling the 
same fruit, for at the bottom he was true, genuine, and 
kindly hearted, very amusing, and intiniateby known to all 
travellers on the West Indian line, in the service of which he 
had passed forty years of his life. In his own ship he was 
sovereign and recognised no superior. Bishops, colonial 
governors, presidents of South American republics were, so 



The Jamaica Mail Packet. 179 

far as their office went, no more to him than other people, 
and as long as they were on board were chattels of which he 
had temporary charge. Peer and peasant were alike under 
his orders, which were absolute as the laws of Medes and 
Persians. On the other hand, his eye was quick to see if 
there Avas any personal merit in a man, and if you deserved 
his respect you would have it. One particular merit he had 
which I greatly approved. He kept his cabin to himself, and 
did not turn it into a smoking room, as I have known cap- 
tains do a great deal too often. 

All my own thoughts were fixed upon Jamaica. I had 
read so much about it, that my memory was full of persons 
and scenes and adventures of which Jamaica was the stage 
or subject. Penn and Venables and the Puritan conquest, 
and Morgan and the buccaneers ; Port Royal crowded with 
Spanish prizes ; its busy dockyards, and English frigates and 
privateers fitting out there for glorious or desperate enter- 
prises. The name of Jamaica brought them crowding up 
with incident on incident ; and behind the history came Tom 
Cringle and the wild and reckless, yet wholesome and hearty, 
planter's life in Kingston ; the dark figures of the pirates 
swinging above the mangroves at Gallows Point; the balls 
and parties and the beautiful quadroons, and the laughing, 
merry, innocent children of darkness, with the tricks of the 
middies upon them. There was the tragic side of it too, in 
slavery, the last ugly flash out of the cloud being not two 
decades distant in the Eyre and Gordon time. Interest 
enough there was about Jamaica, and things would be 
sti'angely changed in Kingston if nothing remained of the 
society which was once so brilliant. There, if anywhere, 
England and English rule were not yet a vanished quantity. 
There was a dockyard still, and a commodore in command, 
and a guardship and gunboats, and English regiments and 
West Indian regiments with English officers. Somo repre- 



180 The English in the West Indies. 

sentatives, too, I knew were to be found of the old Anglo- 
West Indians, men whose fathers and grandfathers were born 
in the island, and whose fortunes were bound up in it. 
Aaron Bang ! what would not one have given to meet Aaron ? 
The real Aaron had been gathered to his fathers, and nature 
does not make two such as he was ; but I might fall in with 
something that would remind me of him. Paul Gelid and 
Pepperpot Wagtail, and Peter Mangrove, better than either 
of them — the likeness of these might be surviving, and it 
would be delightful to meet and talk to them. They would 
give fresh flavour to the immortal ' Log.' Even another Tom 
was not impossible ; some middy to develop hereafter into a 
frigate captain and to sail again into Port Royal with his 
prizes in tow. 

Nature at all events could not be changed. The white 
rollers would still be breaking on the coral reefs. The palms 
would still be waving on the spit which forms the harbour, 
and the amber mist would be floating round the peaks of the 
Blue Mountains. There were English soldiers and sailors, 
and English people. The English language was spoken there 
by blacks as well as whites. The religion was English. Our 
country went for something, and there would be some per- 
sons, at least, to whom the old land was more than a step- 
mother, and who were not sighing in their hearts for an- 
nexation to the American Union. The governor, Sir Henry 
Norman, of Indian fame, I was sorry to learn, was still ab- 
sent ; he had gone home on some legal business. Sir Henry 
had an Imperial reputation. He had been spoken of to me 
in Barbadoes as able, if he were allowed a chance, to act as 
Viceroy of all the islands, and to set them on their feet again. 
I could well believe that a man of less than Sir Henry's re- 
puted power could do it — for in the thing itself there was no 
great difficulty — if only we at home were once disenchanted ; 
though all the ability in the world would be thrown away as 



President Salomon. 181 

long as the enchantment continued. I did see Sir Henry, as 
it turned out, but only for a few hours. 

Our voyage was without remarkable incident; as voyages 
are apt to be in these days of powerful steamboats. One 
morning there was a tropical rain storm which was worth 
seeing. We had a strong awning over the quarter-deck, so 
I could stand and watch it. An ink-black cloud came sud- 
denly up from the north which seemed to hang into the sea, 
the surface of the water below being violently agitated. Ac- 
cording to popular belief, the cloud on these occasions is 
drawing up water which it afterwards discharges. Were this 
so, the water discharged would be salt, which it never is. 
The cause of the agitation is a cyclonic rotation of air or 
local whirlwind. The most noticeable feature was the black- 
ness of the cloud itself. It became so dark that it would 
have been difficult to read any ordinary print. The rain, 
when it burst, fell not in drops but in torrents. The deck 
was flooded, and the scuttle-holes ran like jets from a pump. 
The awning was ceasing to be a shelter, for the water was 
driven bodily through it ; but the downpour passed off as 
suddenly as it had risen. There was no lightning and no 
wind. The sea under our side was glassy smooth, and was 
dashed into millions of holes by the plunging of the rain 
pellets. 

The captain in his journeys to and fro had become ac- 
quainted with the present black President of Hayti, Mr. Sal- 
omon. I had heard of this gentleman as an absolute person, 
who knew how to make himself obeyed, and who treated op- 
position to his authority in a very summary manner. He 
seemed to be a favourite of the captain's. He had been edu- 
cated in France, had met with many changes of fortune, and 
after an exile in Jamaica had become quasi-king of the black 
republic. I much wished to see this paradise of negro lib- 
erty ; we were to touch at Jacmel, which is one of the prin- 



182 The English in the West Indies. 

cipal ports, to leave the mails, and Captain W was good 

enough to say that, if I liked, I might go on shore for an hour 
or two with the officer in charge. 

Hayti, as everyone knows who has studied the black prob- 
lem, is the western portion of Columbus's Espanola, or St. 
Domingo, the largest after Cuba and the most fertile in nat- 
ural resources of all the islands of the Caribbean Sea. It 
was the earliest of the Spanish settlements in the New World. 
The Spaniards found there a million or two of mild and inno- 
cent Indians, whom in their first enthusiasm they intended 
to convert to Christianity, and to offer as the first fruits of 
their discovery to the Virgin Mary and St. Domenic. The 
saint gave his name to the island, and his temperament to 
the conquerors. In carrying out their pious design, they 
converted the Indians off the face of the earth, working them 
to death in their mines and plantations. They filled their 
places with blacks from Africa, who proved of tougher con- 
stitution. They colonised, they built cities ; they throve 
and prospered for nearly two hundred years, when Hayti, the 
most valuable half of the island, was taken from them by the 
buccaneers and made into a French province. The rest, 
which keeps the title of St. Domingo, continued Spanish, and 
is Spanish still — a thinly inhabited, miserable, Spanish repub- 
lic. Hayti became afterwards the theatre of the exploits of 
the ever-glorious Toussaint l'Ouverture. When the French 
Kevolution broke out, and Liberty and the Eights of Man be- 
came the new gospel, slavery could not be allowed to continue 
in the French dominions. The blacks of the colony were 
emancipated and were received into the national brotherhood. 
In sympathy with the Jacobins of France, who burnt the 
chateaux of the nobles and guillotined the owners of them, 
the liberated slaves rose as soon as they were free, and mas- 
sacred the whole French population, man, woman, and child. 
Napoleon sent an army to punish the murderers and recover 



The Black Republic. 183 

the colony. Toussaint, who had no share in the atrocities, 
and whose fault was only that he had been caught by the pre- 
vailing political epidemic and believed in the evangel of free, 
dom, surrendered and was carried to France, where he died 
or else was made an end of. The yellow fever avenged him, 
and secured for his countrymen the opportunity of trying out 
to the uttermost the experiment of negro self-government. 
The French troops perished in tens of thousands. They were 
reinforced again and again, but it was like pouring water into 
a sieve. The climate won a victory to the black man which 
he could not win for himself. They abandoned their enter- 
prise at last, and Hayti was free. We English tried our hand 
to recover it afterwards, but we failed also, and for the same 
reason. i 

Hayti has thus for nearly a century been a black independ- 
ent state. The negro race have had it to themselves and 
have not been interfered with. They were equipped when 
they started on their career of freedom with the Catholic re- 
ligion, a civilised language, European laws and manners, and 
the knowledge of various arts and occupations which they 
had learn fc while they were slaves. They speak French still ; 
they are nominally Catholics still ; and the tags and rags of 
the gold lace of French civilisation continue to cling about 
their institutions. But in the heart of them has revived the 
old idolatry of the Gold Coast, and in the villages of the in- 
terior, where they are out of sight and can follow their in- 
stincts, they sacrifice children in the serpent's honour after 
the manner of their forefathers. Perhaps nothing better 
could be expected from a liberty which was inaugurated by 
assassination and plunder. Political changes which prove 
successful do not begin in that way. 

The Bight of Leogane is a deep bay carved in the side of 
the island, one arm of which is a narrow ridge of high moun- 
tains a hundred and fifty miles long and from thirty to forty 



184 The English in the West Indies. 

wide. At the head of this bay, to the north of the ridge, is 
Port au Prince, the capital of this remarkable community. 
On the south, on the immediately opposite side of the moun- 
tains and facing the Caribbean Sea, is Jacmel, the town next 
in importance. We arrived off it shortly after daybreak. 
The houses, which are white, looked cheerful in the sunlight. 
Harbour there was none, but an open roadstead into which 
the swell of the sea sets heavily, curling over a long coral 
reef, which forms a partial shelter. The mountain range rose 
behind, sloping off into rounded woody hills. Here were the 
feeding grounds of the herds of wild cattle which tempted 
the buccaneers into the island, and from which they took 
their name. The shore was abrupt ; the land broke off in 
cliffs of coral rock tinted brilliantly with various colours. 
One rather striking white cliff, a ship's officer assured me, 
was chalk ; adding flint when I looked incredulous. His 
geological education was imperfect. We brought up a mile 
outside the black city. The boat was lowered. None of the 
other passengers volunteered to go with me ; the English are 
out of favour in Hayti just now ; the captain discouraged 
landings out of mere curiosity ; and, indeed, the officer with 
the mails had to reassure himself of Captain W 's con- 
sent before he would take me. The presence of Europeans 
in any form is barely tolerated. A few only are allowed to 
remain about the ports, just as the Irish say they let a few 
Danes remain in Dublin and Waterford after the battle of 
Clontarf, to attend to the ignoble business of trade. 

The country after the green of the Antilles looked brown 
and parched. In the large islands the winter months are 
dry. As we approached the reef we saw the long hills of 
water turn to emerald as they rolled up the shoal, then comb- 
ing and breaking in cataracts of snow-white foam. The of- 
ficer in charge took me within oar's length of the rock to try 
my nerves, and the sea, he did not fail to tell me, swarmed 



Jacmel. 185 

with sharks of the worst propensities. Two steamers were 
lying inside, one of which, belonging to an English company, 
had 'happened a misfortune,' and was breaking up as a de- 
serted wreck. A Yankee clipper schooner had just come in 
with salt fish and crackers — a singularly beautiful vessel, 
with immense beam, which would have startled the builders 
of the Cowes racers. It was precisely like the schooner which 
Tom Cringle commanded before the dockyard martinets had 
improved her into ugliness, built on the lines of the old 
pirate craft of the islands, when the lives and fortunes of 
men hung on the extra speed, or the point which they could 
lie closer to the wind. Her return cargo would be coffee 
and bananas. 

Englishmen move about in Jacmel as if they were ashamed 
of themselves among their dusky lords and masters. I ob- 
served the Yankee skipper paddling himself off in a canoe 
with his broad straw hat and his cigar in his mouth, looking 
as if all the world belonged to him, and as if all the world, and 
the Hayti blacks in particular, were aware of the fact. The 
Yankee, whether we like it or not, is the acknowledged sover- 
eign in these waters. 

The landing place was, or had been, a jetty built on piles 
and boarded over. Half the piles were broken ; the planks 
had rotted and fallen through. The swell was rolling home, 
and we had to step out quickly as the boat rose on the crest 
of the wave. A tattered crowd of negroes were loafing about 
variously dressed, none, however, entirely without clothes of 
some kind. One of them did kindly give me a hand, observ- 
ing that I was less light of foot than once I might have been. 
The agent's office was close by. I asked the head clerk — a 
Frenchman — to find me a guide through the town. He called 
one of the bystanders whom he knew, and we started together, 
I and my black companion, to see as much as I could in the 
hour which was allowed me. The language was less hopeless 



186 The English in the West Indies. 

than at Dominica. We found that we could understand each 
other — he, me, tolerably ; I, him, in fragments, for his tongue 
went as fast as a shuttle. Though it was still barely eight 
o'clock the sun was scalding. The streets were filthy and 
the stench abominable. The houses were of white stone, and 
of some pretensions, but ragged and uninviting — paint no- 
where, and the woodwork of the windows and verandahs 
mouldy and worm-eaten. The inhabitants swarmed as in a 
St. Giles's rookery. I suppose they were all out of doors. If 
any were left at home Jacmel must have been as populous as 
an African ants' nest. As I had looked for nothing better 
than a Kaffir kraal, the degree of civilisation was more than I 
expected. I expressed my admiration of the buildings ; my 
guide was gratified, and pointed out to me with evident pride 
a new hotel or boarding house kept by a Madam Somebody 
who was the great lady of the place. Madame Ellememe was 
sitting in a shady balcony outside the first floor windows. 
She was a large menacing-looking mulatto, like some ogress 
of the 'Arabian Nights,' capable of devouring, if she found 
them palatable, any number of salt babies. I took off my hat 
to this formidable dame, which she did not condescend to 
notice, and we passed on. A few houses in the outskirts 
stood in gardens with inclosures about them. There is some 
trade in the place, and there were evidently families, negro or 
European, who lived in less squalid style than the generality. 
There was a governor there, nry guide informed me— an 
ornamental personage, much respected. To nry question 
whether he had any soldiers, I was answered ' No ; ' the Hayti- 
ans didn't like soldiers. I was to understand, however, that 
they were not common blacks. They aspired to be a common- 
wealth with public rights and alliances. Hayti a republic, 
France a republic : France and Hayti good friends now. 
They had a French bishop and French priests and a French 
currency. In spite of their land laws, they were proud of 



Jacmel. 1ST 

their affinity with the great nation ; and I heard afterwards, 
though not from my Jacmel companion, that the better part 
of the Haytians would welcome back the French dominion if 
they were not afraid that the Yankees would disapprove. 

My guide persisted in leading me outside the town, and 
as my time was limited, I tried in various ways to induce 
him to take me back into it. He maintained, however, that 
he had been told to show me whatever was most interesting, 
and I found that I was to see an American windmill-pump 
which had been just erected to supply Jacmel with fresh 
water. It was the first that had been seen in the island, and 
was a wonder of wonders. Doubtless it implied ' progress,' 
and would assist in the much-needed ablution of the streets 
and kennels. I looked at it and admired, and having thus 
done homage, I was allowed my own way. 

It was market day. The Yankee cargo had been un- 
loaded, and a great open space in front of the cathedral was 
covered with stalls or else blankets stretched on poles to keep 
the sun off, where hundreds of Haytian dames were sitting 
or standing disposing of their wares — piles of salt fish, piles 
of coloured calicoes, knives, scissors, combs, and brushes. 
Of home produce there were great baskets of loaves, fruit, 
vegetables, and butcher's meat on slabs. I looked inquisi- 
tively at these last ; but I acknowledge that I saw no joints 
of suspicious appearance. Children were running about in 
thousands, not the least as if they were in fear of being sacri- 
ficed, and babies hung upon their mothers as if natural affec- 
tion existed in Jacmel as much as in other places. I asked 
no compromising cpiestions, not wishing to be torn in pieces. 
Sir Spencer St. John's book has been heard of in Hayti, and 
the anger about it is considerable. The scene was interest- 
ing enough, but the smell was unendurable. The wild Afri- 
can black is not filthy in his natural state. He washes much, 
and, as wild animals do, at least tries to keep himself clear 



1S8 The English in the West Indies. 

of vermin. The blacks in Jacmel appeared (like the same 
animals as soon as they are domesticated) to lose the sense 
which belongs to them in their wild condition. My preju- 
] dices, if I have any, had not blinded me to the good qualities 
of the men and women in Dominica. I do not think it was 
prejudice wholly which made me think the faces which I saw 
in Hayti the most repulsive which I had ever seen in the 
world, or Jacmel itself, taken for all in all, the foulest, dirti- 
est, and nastiest of human habitations. The dirt, however, I 
will do them the justice to say did not seem to extend to their 
churches. The cathedral stood at the upper end of the mar- 
ket place. I went in. It was airy, cool, and decent-looking. 
Some priests were saying mass, and there was a fairly large 
congregation. I wished to get a nearer sight of the altar 
and the images and pictures, imagining that in Hayti the 
sacred persons might assume a darker colour than in 
Europe ; but I could not reach the chancel without disturb- 
ing people who were saying their prayers, and, to the dis- 
appointment of my companion, who beckoned me on, and 
would have cleared a way for me, I controlled my curiosity 
and withdrew. 

My hour's leave of absence was expired. I made my way 
back to the landing place, where the mail steamer's boat was 
waiting for me. On the steamer herself the passengers were 
waiting impatiently for breakfast, which had been put off on 
our account. We hurried on board at our best speed ; but 
before breakfast could be thought of, or any other thing, I 
had to strip and j>lunge into a bath and wash away the odour 
of the great negro republic of the West which clung to my 
clothes and skin. 

Leaving Jacmel and its associations, we ran all day along 
the land, skirting a range of splendid mountains between 
seven and eight thousand feet high ; past the Isle a Vache ; 
past the bay of Cayes, once famous as the haunt of the sea- 



A Jamaica Planter. 189 

rovers ; past Cape Tubiron, the Cape of Sharks. At evening 
we were in the channel which divides St. Domingo from 

Jamaica. Captain insisted to me that this was the 

scene of Rodney's action, and he pointed out to me the head- 
land under which the British fleet had been lying. He was 
probably right in saying that it was the scene of some action 
of Rodney's, for there is hardly a corner of the West Indies 
where he did not leave behind him the print of his cannon 
shot ; but it was not the scene of the great fight which saved 
the British Empire. That was below the cliffs of Dominica ; 
and Captain W , as many others have done, was con- 
founding Dominica with St. Domingo. 

The next morning we were to anchor at Port Royal. We 
had a Jamaica gentleman of some consequence on board. I 
had failed so far to make acquaintance with him, but on this 
last evening he joined me on deck, and I gladly used the 
opportunity to learn something of the present condition of 
things. I was mistaken in expecting to find a more vigorous 
or more sanguine tone of feeling than I had left at the An- 
tilles. There was the same despondency, the same sense 
that their state was hopeless, and that nothing which they 
could themselves do would mend it. He himself, for in- 
stance, was the owner of a large sugar estate which a few 
years ago was worth 60,000?. It was not encumbered. He 
was his own manager, and had spared no cost in providing 
the newest machinery. Yet, with the present prices and with 
the refusal of the American Commercial Treaty, it would not 
pay the expense of cultivation. He held on, for it was all 
that he could do. To sell was impossible, for no one would 
buy even at the price of the stock on the land. It was the 
same story which I had heard everywhere. The expenses of 
the administration, this gentleman said, were out of all pro- 
portion to the resources of the island, and were yearly in- 
creasing. The planters had governed in the old days as the 



190 The English in the West Indies. 

English landlords had governed Ireland. They had gov- 
erned cheaply and on their own resources. They had author- 
ity ; they were respected ; their word was law. Now their 
power had been taken from them, and made over to paid 
officials, and the expense was double what it used to be. 
Between the demands made on them in the form of taxation 
and the fall in the value of their produce their backs were 
breaking, and the ' landed interest ' would come to an end. 
I asked him, as I had asked many persons without getting a 
satisfactory answer, what he thought that the Imperial Gov- 
ernment could do to mend matters. He seemed to think 
that it was too late to do anything. The blacks were in- 
creasing so fast, and the white influence was diminishing so 
fast, that Jamaica in a few years would be another Hayti. 

In this gentleman, too, I found to my sorrow that there 
was the same longing for admission to the American Union 
which I had left behind me at the Antilles. In spite of 
soldiers and the naval station, the old country was still 
looked upon as a stepmother, and of genuine loyalty there 
was, according to him, little or nothing. If the West Indies 
were ever to become prosperous again, it could only be when 
they were annexed to the United States. For the present, at 
least, he admitted that annexation was impossible. Not on 
account of any possible objection on the part of the British 
Government ; it seems to be assumed by every one that the 
British Government cares nothing what they do ; nor wholly 
on account of the objections of the Americans, though he 
admitted that the Americans were unwilling to receive them ; 
but because in the existing state of feeling such a change 
could not be carried out without civil war. In Jamaica, at 
least, the blacks and mulatoes would resist. There were 
nearly 700,000 of them, while of the whites there were but 
15,000, and the relative numbers were eveiw year becoming- 
more unfavourable. The blacks knew that under England 



Jamaican Prospects. 191 

they had nothing to fear. They would have everything more 
and more their own way, and in a short time they expected 
to have the island to themselves. They might collect arms ; 
they might do what they pleased, and no English officer 
dared to use rough measures with them ; while, if they be- 
longed to the Union, the whites would recover authority one 
way or another. The Americans were ready with their rifles 
on occasions of disorder, and their own countrymen did not 
call them to account for it as we did. The blacks, therefore, 
preferred the liberty which they had and the prospects to 
which they looked forward, and they and the mulattoes also 
would fight, and fight desperately, before they would allow 
themselves to be made American citizens. 

The prospect which Sir. laid before me was not a 

beautiful one, and was coming a step nearer at each advance 
that was made in the direction of constitutional self-govern- 
ment ; for, like every other person with whom I spoke on the 
subject, he said emphatically that Europeans would not re- 
main to be ruled under a black representative system ; nor 
would they take any part in it when they would be so over- 
whelmingly outvoted and outnumbered. They would sooner 
forfeit all that they had in the world and go away. An effective 
and economical administration on the Indian pattern might 
have saved all a few years ago. It was too late now, and Ja- 
maica was past recovery. At this rate it was a sadly altered 
Jamaica since Tom Cringle's time, though his friend Aaron 
even then had seen what was probably coming. But I could 

not accept entirely all that Mr. had been saying, and 

had to discount the natural irritation of a man who sees his 
fortune sliding out of his hands. Moreover, for myself, I 
never listen much to a desponding person. Even when a 
cause is lost utterly, and no rational hope remains, I would 
still go down, if it had to be so, with my spirit unbroken arid 
my face to the enemy. Mr. perhaps would recover heart 



192 The English in the West Indies. 

if the price of sugar mended a little. For my own part, I do 
not care much whether it mends or not. The economics of 
the islands ought not to depend exclusively on any single 
article of produce. I believe, too, in spite of gloomy prog- 
nostics, that a loyal and prosperous Jamaica is still among 
the possibilities of the future, if we will but study in earnest 

the character of the problem. Mr. , however, did most 

really convey to me the convictions of a large and influential 
body of West Indians — convictions on which they are already 
acting, and will act more and more. With Hayti so close, 
and with opinion in England indifferent to what becomes of 
them, they will clear out while they have something left to 
lose, and will not wait till ruin is upon them, or till they are 
ordered off the land by a black legislature. There is a saying 
in Hayti that the white man has no rights which the blacks 
are bound to recognise. 

I walked forward after Ave had done talking. We had five 
hundred of the poor creatures on board on their way to the 
Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy 
beam sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced into the 
condition of the pigs who used to occupy the foredeck in the 
Cork and Bristol packets. They were lying in a confused 
heap together, helpless, miserable, without consciousness ap- 
parently, save a sense in each that he was wretched. Unfor- 
tunate brothers-in-law ! following the laws of political econ- 
omy, and carrying their labour to the dearest market, where, 
before a year was out, half of them were to die. They had 
souls, too, some of them, and honest and kindly hearts. I 
observed one man who was suffering less than the rest read- 
ing aloud to a prostrate group a chapter of the New Testa- 
ment ; another was reading to himself a French Catholic 
book of devotion. 

The dawn was breaking in the east when I came on deck 
in the morning". The Blue Mountains were hanqinq - over us 



Kingston. 193 

ou our right hand, the peaks buried in white mist which the 
uurisen sun was faintly tinting with orange. We had passed 
Morant Bay, the scene of Gordon's rash attempt to imitate 
Toussaint l'Ouverture. As so often in the Antilles, a level 
plain stretched between the sea and the base of the hills, 
formed by the debris washed down by the rivers in the rainy 
season. Among cane fields and cocoa-nut groves we saw 
houses and the chimneys of the sugar factories ; and, as we 
came nearer, we saw men and horses going to their early 
work. Presently Kingston itself came in sight, and Up Park 
Camp, and the white barracks high up on the mountain side, 
of which one had read and heard so much. Here was act- 
ually Tom Cringle's Kingston, and between us and the town 
was the long sand spit which incloses the lagoon at the head 
of which it is built. How this natural breakwater had been de- 
posited I could find no one to tell me. It is eight miles long, 
rising but a few feet above the water-line, in places not more 
than thirty yards across — nowhere, except at the extremity, 
more than sixty or a hundred. The thundering swell of the 
Caribbean Sea breaks upon it from year's end to year's end, 
and never washes it any thinner. Where the sand is dry, be- 
yond the reach of the waves, it is planted thickly all along 
with palms, and ajypears from the sea a soft green line, over 
which appear the masts and spars of the vessels at anchor in 
the harbour, and the higher houses of Kingston itself. To 
reach the opening into the lagoon you have to run on to the 
end of the sandbank, where there is a peninsula on which is 
built the Port Royal so famous in West Indian story. Half- 
way down among the palms the lighthouse stands, from which 
a gun was fired as we passed, to give notice that the English 
mail was coming in. Treacherous coral reefs rise out of the 
deep water for several miles, some under water and visible 
only by the breakers over them, others forming into low 
wooded islands. Only local pilots can take a ship safely 
13 



194 The English in the West ladies. 

through these powerful natural defence works. There are 
but two channels through which the lagoon can be ap- 
proached. The eastern passage, along which we were steam- 
ing, runs so near the shore that an enemy's ship would be 
destroyed by the batteries among the sandhills long before it 
could reach the mouth. The western passage is less intricate, 
but that also is commanded by powerful forts. In old times 
Kingston was unattackable, so strong had the position been 
made by nature and art combined. It could be shelled now 
over the spit from the open sea. It might be destroyed, but 
even so could not easily be taken. 

I do not know that I have ever seen any scene moi*e inter- 
esting than that which broke upon my eyes as we rounded 
the point, and the lagoon opened out before me. Kingston, 
which we had passed half an hour before, lay sis miles off at 
the head of it, now inside the sand ridge, blue and hazy in 
the distance. At the back were the mountains. The mist 
had melted off, standing in shadowy grey masses with the 
sun rising behind them. Immediately in front were the 
dockyards, forts, and towers of Port Royal, with the guard- 
ship, gunboats, and tenders, with street and terrace, roof and 
turret and glistening vane, all clearly and sharply defined in 
the exquisite transparency of the air. The associations of 
the place no doubt added to the impression. Before the first 
hut was run up in Kingston, Port Royal was the rendezvous 
of all English ships which, for spoil or commerce, frequented 
the West Indian seas. Here the buccaneers sold their plun- 
der and squandered their gains in gambling and riot. Here 
in the later century of legitimate wars, whole fleets were 
gathered to take in stores, or refit when shattered by engage- 
ments. Here Nelson had been, and Colli ngwood and Jervis, 
and all our other naval heroes. Here prizes were brought in 
for adjudication, and pirates to be tried and hanged. In this 
spot more than in any other, beyond Great Britain herself, 



■. i !«/„*;. 



















fg 




*l?» 

i«;« 



Port Royal. 195 

the energy of the Empire once was throbbing. The ' Urgent,' 
an old two-decker, and three gunboats were all that were now 
floating in the once crowded water ; the ' Urgent,' no longer 
equipped for active service, imperfectly armed, inadequately 
manned, but still flaunting the broad white ensign, and 
grand with the houses which lay behind her. There were 
batteries at the point, and batteries on the opposite shore. 
The morning bugle rang out clear and inspiriting from the 
town, and white coats and gold and silver lace glanced in and 
out as men and officers were passing to parade. Here, at 
any rate, England was still alive. 

The channel at the entrance is a mile in width. The lagoon 
(the open part of it) may be seven or eight miles long and 
half as many broad. It forms the mouth of the Cobre river, 
one of the largest in Jamaica, on which, ten miles up, stands 
the original seat of government established by the Spaniards, 
and called after them Spanish Town. The fashion of past 
times, as old as the times of Thucydides, and continued on 
till the end of the last century, was to choose the sites for 
important towns in estuaries, at a distance from the sea, to be 
out of the reach of pirates. The Cobre, running down from 
Spanish Towm, turns the plain through which it flows into a 
swamp. The swamp covers itself with mangroves, and the 
mangroves fringe the shore of the lagoon itself for two-thirds 
of its circuit. As Jamaica grew in wealth and population the 
trade was carried from Port Royal deeper into the bay. An- 
other town sprang up there, called King's Town, or shortly 
'Kingston.' The administration was removed thither for 
convenience, and though fallen away from its old conse- 
quence, Kingston, with its extended suburbs, its churches 
and warehouses, and large mansions overhung with trees, 
looks at a distance like a place of consideration. Many 
ships lay along the wharves, or anchored a few cables' dis- 
tance off. Among them were a couple of Spanish frigates, 



196 The English in the West Indies. 

which remain there in permanence on the watch for refu- 
gees from Cuba. On the slopes behind the town, as far as 
eye could see, were the once splendid estates of the sugar 
princes of the last century. One of them was pointed out 
to me as the West Indian home of the author of, 'Tom 
Cringle.' 

We had to stop for a few minutes as the officer of the port 
came alongside for the mails. We then went on at reduced 
speed. The lagoon is generally shoal. A deep water chan- 
nel runs along the side of it which is farthest from the sea ; 
made, I suppose, by the river, for as usual there is little tide 
or none. Halfway up we passed under the walls of Fort 
Augusta, now a ruin and almost deserted, but once mounting 
a hundred guns. The money which we spent on the defence 
of Jamaica in the old times was not always laid out wisely, as 
will be seen in an account which I shall have to give of this 
remarkable structure ; but, at any rate, we were lavish of it. 

Of the sharks with which the water used to swarm we saw 
none. Port Royal Jack and his kindred are said to have dis- 
appeared, driven or frightened out by the screws of the 
steamers. But it is not a place which I should choose for a 
swim. Nor did the nigger boys seem as anxious as I had 
seen them in other spots to dive for sixpences under the 
ship's side. 

No account is made of days when you come into port after 
a voyage. Cargoes have to be landed, or coal has to be taken 
in. The donkey engines are at work, hoisting packing cases 
and luggage out of the hold. Stewards run to and fro, and 
state-room doors are opened, and busy figures are seen 
through each, stuffing their portmanteaus and preparing for 
departure. The church bells at Kingston, ringing for early 
service, reminded me that it was Sunday. We brought up 
at a jetty, and I cannot say that, close at hand, the town was 
as atti'active as it had appeared when first I saw it. The en- 



Kingston Harbour. 197 

chantment was gone. The blue haze of distance gave place to 
reality. The water was so fetid under the ship's sides that it 
could not be pumped into the baths. Odours, not Arabian, 
from open drains reminded me of Jacmel. The streets, up 
which I could see from the afterdeck, looked dirty and the 
houses shabby. Docks and wharves, however, are never the 
brightest part of any town, English or foreign. There were 
people enough at any rate, and white faces enough among 
them. Gangways were rigged from the ship to the shore, 
and ladies and gentlemen rushed on board to meet their 
friends. The companies' agents appeared in the captain's 
cabin. Porters were scrambling for luggage ; pushing, shov- 
ing, and swearing. Passengers who had come out with us, 
and had never missed attendance at the breakfast table, were 
hurrying home unbreakfasted to their wives and families. 
My own plans were uncertain. I had no friends, not even an 
acquaintance. I knew nothing of the hotels and lodging- 
houses, save that they had generally a doubtful reputation. 
I had brought with me a letter of introduction to Sir H. 
Norman, the governor, but Sir Henry had gone to England. 
On the whole, I thought it best to inclose the letter to Mr. 
"Walker, the Colonial Secretary, who I understood was in 
Kingston, with a note asking for advice. This I sent by a 
messenger. Meanwhile I stayed on board to look about me 
from the deck. The ship was to go on the next morning to 
the canal works at Darien. Time was precious. Immediately 
on arriving she had begun to take in coal, Sunday though it 
might be, and a singular spectacle it was. The coal yard was 
close by, and some hundreds of negroes, women and men, but\ 
women in four times the number, were hard at work. The 
entire process was by hand and basket, each basket holding 
from eighty to a hundred pounds weight. Two planks were 
laid down at a steep incline from the ship's deck to the yard. 
Swinging their loads on their heads, erect as statues, and 



198 The English in the West Indies. 

with a step elastic as a racehorse's, they marched up one of 
the planks, emptied their baskets into the coal bunkers, and 
ran down the other. Bound and round they went under the 
blazing sun all the morning through, and round arid round 
they would continue to go all the afternoon. The men took 
it comparatively easy. The women flew along, laughing, and 
clamouring, as if not knowing what weariness was — willing 
beasts of burden, for they had the care upon them of their 
children ; the men disclaiming all responsibilities on that 
score, after the babies have been once brought into the world. 
The poor women are content with the arrangement, which 
they prefer to what they would regard as legal bondage. 
They earn at this coaling work seven or eight shillings a day. 
If they were wives, their husbands would take it from them 
and spend it in rum. The companion who is not a wife can 
refuse and keep her earnings for her little ones. If black 
suffrage is to be the rule in Jamaica, I would take it away 
from the men and would give it to the superior sex. The 
women are the working bees of the hive. They would make 
a tolerable nation of black amazons, and the babies would not 
be offered to Jumbi. 

When I had finished my meditations on the coaling women, 
there were other black creatures to wonder at ; great boobies 
or pelicans, old acquaintances of the Zoological Gardens, who 
act as scavengers in these waters. We had perhaps a couple 
of dozen of them round us as large as vultures, ponderous 
and sleepy to look at when squatting on rocks or piles, over- 
weighted by their enormous bills. On the wing they were 
astonishingly swift, wheeling in circles, till they could fix 
their prey with their eyes, then pouncing upon it with a 
violent slanting plunge. I suppose their beaks might be 
broken if they struck directly, but I never saw one miss its 
aim. Nor do they ever go below the surface, but seize always 
what is close to it. I was told — I do not know how truly — 



A West Indian Breakfast. 199 

that like the diablots in Dominica, they nest in the mountains 
and only come down to the sea to feed. 

Hearing that I was in search of quarters, a Miss Burton, a 
handsome mulatto woman, came up and introduced herself to 
me. Hotels in the English West Indies are generally detest- 
able. This dame had set up a boarding house on improved 
principles, or rather two boarding houses, between which she 
invited me to take my choice, one in the suburbs of King- 
ston, one on the bank of a river in a rocky gorge in the Blue 
Mountains. In either of these she promised that she would 
make me happy, and I do not doubt tbat she would have suc- 
ceeded, for her fame had spread through all Jamaica, and her 
face was as merry as it was honest. As it turned out I was 
provided for elsewhere, and I lost the chance of making an 
acquaintance which I should have valued. When she spoke 
to me she seemed a very model of vigour and health. She 
died suddenly while I was in the island. 

It was still early. When the vessel was in some order 
again, and those who were going on shore had disappeared, 
the rest of us were called down to breakfast to taste some of 
those Jamaica delicacies on which Paul Gelid was so elo- 
quent. The fruit was the chief attraction : pineapples, of 
which one can eat as much as one likes in these countries 
with immunity from after suffering ; oranges, more excellent 
than even those of Grenada and Dominica ; shaddocks, ad- 
mirable as that memorable one which seduced Adam ; and 
for the first time mangoes, the famous Number Eleven of 
which I had heard such high report, and was now to taste. 
The English gardeners can do much, but they cannot ripen a 
Number Eleven, and it is too delicate to bear carriage. It 
must be eaten in the tropics or nowhere. The mango is the 
size and shape of a swan's egg, of a ruddy yellow colour when 
ripe, and in flavour like an exceptionally good apricot, with a 
very slight intimation of resin. The stone is disproportion- 



200 The English in the West Indies. 

ately large. The flesh adheres to it, and one abandons as 
hopeless the attempt to eat mangoes with clean lips and fin- 
gers. The epicures insist that they should be eaten only in 
a bath. 

The heat was considerable, and the feast of fruit was the 
more welcome. Soon after the Colonial Secretary politely 
answered my note in person. In the absence of the governor 
of a colony, the colonial secretary, as a rule, takes his place. 
In Jamaica, and wherever we have a garrison, the commander 
of the forces becomes acting governor ; I suppose because it 
is not convenient to place an officer of high military rank 
under the orders of a civilian who is not the direct represent- 
ative of the sovereign. In the gentleman who now called on 
me I found an old acquaintance whom I had known as a boy 
many years ago. He told me that, if I had made no other 

arrangements, Colonel J , who was the present chief, was 

expecting me to be his guest at the ' King's House ' during 
my stay in Jamaica. My reluctance to trespass on the hospi- 
tality of an entire stranger was not to be allowed. Soldiers 
who have distinguished themselves are, next to lawyers, the 
most agreeable people to be met with, and when I was con- 
vinced that I should really be welcome, I had no other objec- 
tion. An aide-de-camp, I was told, would call for me in the 
afternoon. Meanwhile the secretary stayed with me for an 
hour or two, and I was able to learn something authentic 
from him as to the general condition of things. I had not 
given entire credit to the representations of my planter friend 
of the evening before. Mr. Walker took a more cheerful 
view, and, although the prospects were not as bright as they 
might be, he saw no reason for despondency. Sugar was\ 
down of course. The public debt had increased, and taxa- 1 
tion was heavy. Many gentlemen in Jamaica, as in the An- 
tilles, were selling, or trying to sell, their estates and go out / 
of it. On the other hand, expenses of government were be- 



The Colonial Secretary. 201 

ing reduced, and the revenue showed a surplus. The fruit 
trade with the United States was growing, and promised to 
grow still further. American capitalists had come into the 
island, and were experimenting on various industries. The 
sugar treaty with America would naturally have been wel- 
come ; but Jamaica was less dependent on its sugar crop, and 
the action of the British Government was less keenly re- 
sented. In the Antilles, the Colonial Secretary admitted, 
there might be a desire for annexation to the United States, 
and Jamaican landowners had certainly expressed the same 
wish to myself. ' Mr. "Walker, however, assured me that, while 
the blacks would oppose it unanimously, the feeling, if it 
existed at all among the whites, was confined as yet to a very 
few persons. They had been English for 230 years, and the 
large majority of them wished to remain English. There 
had been suffering among them ; but there had been suffer- 
ing in other places besides Jamaica. Better times might per- 
haps be coming with the opening of the Darien canal, when 
Kingston might hope to become again the centre of a trade. 
Of the negroes, both men and women, Mr. Walker spoke ex- 
tremely favourably. They were far less indolent than they 
were supposed to be ; they were settling on the waste lands, 
acquiring property, growing yams and oranges, and harming 
rjo one ; they had no grievance left ; they knew it, and were 
perfectly contented. 

As Mr. "Walker was an official, I did not ask him about the 
working of the recent changes in the constitution ; nor could 
he have properly answered me if I had. The state of things 
is briefly this : Jamaica, after the first settlement, received a 
parliamentary form of government, modelled on that of Ire- 
land, the colonial liberties being restricted b} r a law analo- 
gous to Poynings' Act. The legislature, so constructed, of 
course represented the white interest only and Avas entirely 
composed of whites. It remained substantially unaltered i ill 



202 The English in the West Indies. 

1853, when modifications were made which admitted coloured 
men to the suffrage, though with so high a franchise as to be 
almost exclusive. It became generally felt that the franchise 
would have to be extended. A popular movement, led by 
Mr. Gordon, who was a member of the legislature, developed 
into a riot, into bloodshed and panic. Gordon was hanged 
by a court-martial, and the assembly, aware that, if allowed 
to exist any longer, it could exist only with the broad ad- 
mission of the negro vote, pronounced its own dissolution, 
surrendered its powers to the Crown, and represented for- 
mally 'that nothing but a strong government could prevent 
the island from lapsing into the condition of Hayti.' 
/ The surrender was accepted. Jamaica was administered 
' till within the last three years by a governor, officials, and 
council, all nominated by the Queen. No dissatisfaction had 
been expressed, and the blacks at least had enjoyed a pros- 
perity and tranquillity which had been unbroken by a single 
disturbance. If the island has suffered, it has suffered from 
causes with which political dissatisfaction has had nothing to 
do, and which, therefore, political changes cannot remove, 
i In 1884 Mr. Gladstone's Government, for reasons which I 
have not been able to ascertain, revived suddenly the repre- 
sentative system ; constructed a council composed equally of 
nominated and of elected members, and placed the franchise 
so low as to include practically every negro peasant who pos- 
sessed a hut and a garden. So long as the Crown retains and 
exercises its power of nomination, no worse results can ensue 
than the inevitable discontent when the votes of the elected 
members are disregarded or overborne. But to have vent- 
ured so important an alteration with the intention of leaving 
it without further extension would have been an act of gra- 
tuitous folly, of which it would be impossible to imagine an 
English cabinet to have been capable. It is therefore as- 
sumed and understood to have been no more than an initial 



Jamaican Constitution. 203 

I step towards passing on the management of Jamaica to the 
black constituencies. It has been so construed in the other 
islands, and. was the occasion of the agitation in Trinidad 
which I observed when I was there. 

My own opinion as to the wisdom of such an experiment 
matters little : but I have a right to say that neither blacks 
nor whites have asked for it ; that no one who knows any- 
thing of the "West Indies and wishes them to remain English 
sincerely asked for it ; that no one agitated for it save a few 
| newspaper writers and mulattoes whom it would raise into 
I consequence. If tried at all, it will be tried either with a 
deliberate intention of cutting Jamaica free from us alto- 
gether, or else in deference to English political superstitions, 
which attribute supernatural virtues to the exercise of the 
| franchise, and assume that a form of self-government which 
i suits us tolerably at home will be equally beneficial in all 
countries and under all conditions. 



CHAPTER Xni 

The English mai's — Irish agitation — Two kinds of colonies — Indian ad. 
ministration — How far applicable in the West Indies — Land at Kings- 
ton — Government House — Dinnerparty — Interesting officer — Majuba 
Hill — Mountain station— Kingston curiosities — Tobacco— Valley in 
the Blue Mountains. 

I am reminded as I write of an adventure which befell Arch- 
bishop "Whately soon after his promotion to the see of Dublin. 
On arriving in Ireland he saw that the people were miser- 
able. The cause, in his mind, was their ignorance of po- 
litical economy, of which he had himself written what he re- 
garded as an excellent manual. An Irish translation of this 
manual he conceived would be the best possible medicine, 
and he commissioned a native Scripture reader to make one. 
To insure correctness he required the reader to retranslate to 
him what he had written line by line. He observed that the 
man as he read turned sometimes two pages at a time. The 
text went on correctly, but his quick eye perceived that some- 
thing was written on the intervening leaves. He insisted on 
knowing what it was, and at last extorted an explanation, 
'Your Grace, me and my comrade conceived that it was 
mighty dry reading, so we have just interposed now and then 
a bit of a pawem, to help it forward, your Grace.' I am my- 
self imitating the translators, and making sandwiches out of 
politics and local descriptions. 

We had brought the English mails with us. There were 
letters to read which had been in the ship with us, though 
out of our reach. There were the newspapers to read. 



Letter's from, England. 205 

They told me nothing but the weary round of Irish outrages 
and the rival remedies of Tory or Radical politicians "who 
cared for Ireland less than I did, and considered only how to 
trim their sails to keep in office or to get it. How sick one 
is of all that ! Half-a-dozen times at least in Anglo-Irish his- 
tory things have come to the same point. ' All Ireland can- 
not govern the Earl of Kildare,' said some one in Henry VIH.'s 
privy council. Then answered Wolsey, in the tone of Mr. 
Gladstone, ' Let the Earl of Kildare govern all Ireland.' 
Elizabeth wished to conciliate. Shan O'Neil, Desmond, Ty- 
rone promised in turn to rule Ireland in loyal union with 
England under Irish ideas. Lord Grey, who was for ' a Ma- 
hometan conquest, ' was censured and 'girded at:' yet the 
end was always broken heads. From 1641 to 1619 an Irish 
parliament sat at Kilkenny, and Charles I. and the Tories 
dreamt of an alliance between Irish popery and English loy- 
alism. Charles lost his head, and Cromwell had to make an 
end of Irish self-government at Drogheda and Wexford. Tyr- 
connell and James II. were to repeal the Act of Settlement 
and restore the forfeited lands to the old owners. The end 
of that came at the Boyne and at Aghrim. Grattan would 
remake the Irish nation. The English Liberals sent Lord 
Fitzwilliam to help him, and the Saxon mastiff and the Celtic 
wolf were to live as brothers evermore. The result has been 
always the same ; the wretched country inflated with a dream 
of independence, and then trampled into mud again. So it 
has been. So it will be again. Ireland cannot be independ- 
ent, for England is stronger than she, and cannot permit it. 
Yet nothing less will satisfy her. And so there has been 
always a weary round of fruitless concessions leading to de- 
mands which cannot be gratified, and in the end we are 
driven back upon force, which the miserable people lack the 
courage to encounter like :nen. Mr. Gladstone's experiment 
differs only from its antecedents because in the past the Eng- 



206 The English in the West Indies. 

lish friends of Irish liberty had a real hope that a reconcilia- 
tion was possible. They believed in what they were trying 
to do. The present enterprise is the creation of parliament- 
ary faction. I have never met any person acquainted with 
the minds and motives of the public men of the day who 
would not confess to me that, if it had suited the interests of 
the leaders of the present Radical party to adopt the Irish 
policy of the Long Parliament, their energy and their elo- 
quence would have been equally at the service of the Protest- 
ant ascendency, which they have now denounced as a upas 
tree. They even ask you with wide eyes what else you 
would expect ? 

Mr. Sexton says that if England means to govern Ireland 
she must keep an army there as large as she keeps in India. 
England could govern Ireland in perfect peace, without an 
army at all, if there was no faction in the House of Commons. 
Either party government will destroy the British Empire, or 
the British nation will make an end of party government on 
its present lines. There are sounds in the air like the cracking 
of the ice of the Neva at the incoming of spring, as if a nobler 
spirit was at last awaking in us. In a few more years there 
may be no more Radicals and no more Conservatives, and the 
nation will be all in all. 

Here is the answer to the question so often asked, What is 
the use of the colonies to us ? The colonies are a hundred- 
fold multiplication of the area of our own limited islands. 
In taking possession of so large a portion of the globe, we 
have enabled ourselves to spread and increase and carry our- 
selves, our language and our liberties, into all climates and 
continents. We overflow at home ; there are too many of us 
here already ; and if no lands belonged to us but Great Britain 
and Ireland, we should become a small insignificant power 
beside the mighty nations which are forming around us. 
There is space for hundreds of millions of us in the terri- 



The Use of Colonies. 207 

tories of which we and our fathers have possessed ourselves. 
In Canada, Australia, New Zealand we add to our numbers 
and our resources. There are so many more Englishmen in 
the world able to hold their own against the mightiest of 
their rivals. Andjwje have another function, such as the Ro- 
mans had. The sections of men on this globe are unequally 
gifted. Some are strong and can govern themselves ; some 
are weak and are the prey of foreign invaders or internal 
anarchy ; and freedom, which all desire, is only attainable by 
weak nations when they are subject to the rule of others who 
are at once powerful and just. This was the duty which fell 
to the Latin race two thousand years ago. In these modern 
times~it has fallen to ours, and in the discharge of it the 
highest features in the English character have displayed them- 
selves. , Circumstances forced on us the conquest of India ; 
we have given India in return internal peace undisturbed by 
tribal quarrels or the ambitions of dangerous neighbours, with 
a law which deals out right to high and low among 250,000, 
000 human beings. 

Never have rulers been less self-seeking than we have been 
in our Asiatic empire. No ' lex de repetundis ' has been 
needed to punish avaricious proconsuls who had fattened 
on the provinces. In such positions the English show at 
their best, and do their best. India has been the training 
school of our greatest soldiers and greatest administrators. 
Strike off the Anglo-Indian names from the roll of famous 
Englishmen, and we shall lose the most illustrious of them 
all. 

In India the rule of England has been an unexampled suc- 
cess, glorious to ourselves and of infinite benefit to our sub- 
jects, because we have been upright and disinterested, and 
have tried sincerely and honourably to do our duty. In other 
countries belonging to us, where with the same methods we 
night have produced the same results, we have applied thtm 



208 The English in the West Indies. 

with a hesitating and less clean hand. We planted Ireland as 
a colony with our own people, we gave them a parliament of 
their own, and set them to govern the native Irish for us, 
instead of doing it ourselves, to save appearances and to save 
trouble. We have not failed altogether. All the good that 
has been done at all in that poor island has been clone by the 
Anglo-Irish landlords. But it has not been much, as the pres- 
ent condition of things shows. In the West Indies similarly 
the first settlers carried with them their English institutions. 
They were themselves a handful. The bulk of the population 
were slaves, and as long as slavery continued those institu- 
tions continued to work tolerably in the interest of the white 
race. When the slaves were emancipated, the distinction of 
colour done away with, and the black multitude and their 
\white employers made equal before the law and equally priv- 
ileged, constitutional government became no longer adapted to 
the new conditions. The white minority could not be trusted 
with the exclusive possession of political power. The blacks 
could not be trusted, with the equally dangerous supremacy 
which their numbers would insure them. Our duty, if we did 
not and do not mean to abandon them altogether, has been 
to govern both with the same equity with which we govern at 
Calcutta. If you choose to take a race like the Irish or like 
the negroes whom you have forced into an unwilling subjec- 
tion and have not treated when in that condition w 7 ith per- 
fect justice — if you take such a race, strike the fetters off them, 
and arm them at once with all the powers and privileges of 
loyal citizens, you ought not to be surprised if they attribute 
your concessions to fear, and if they turn again and rend you. 
When we are brought in contact with races of men who are 
not strong enough or brave enough to defend their own iu- 
dependence, and whom our own safety cannot allow to fall 
uuder any other power, our right and our duty is to govern 
such races and to govern them well, or they will have a right 



Meditations on Government. 209 

in turn to cut our throats. This is our mission. When we 
have dared to act up to it we have succeeded magnificently ; 
we have failed when we have paltered and trifled ; and we 
shall fail again, and the great empire on which the sun never 
sets will be shattered to atoms, if we refuse to look facts in 
the face. 

From these meditations, suggested by the batch of news- 
papers which I had been studying, I was roused by the ar- 
rival of the promised aide-de-camp, a good-looking and good- 
humoured young officer in white uniform (they all wear white 
in the tropics), who had brought the governor's carriage for 
me. Government House, or King's House, as it is called, 
answering to a ' Queen's House ' in Barbadoes, is five miles 
from Kingston, on the slope which gradually ascends from 
the sea to the mountains. We drove through the town, which 
did not improve on closer acquaintance. The houses which 
front towards the streets are generally insignificant. The 
better sort, being behind walls or overhung with trees, were 
imperfectly visible. The roads were deep in white dust, 
which flies everywhere in whirling clouds from the unceasing 
wind. It was the dry season. The rains are not constant in 
Jamaica, as they are in the Antilles. The fields and the sides 
of the mountains were bare and brown and parched. The 
blacks, however, were about in crowds in their Sunday 
finery. Being in a British island, we had got back into the' 
white calicoes and ostrich plumes, and I missed the grace of 
the women at Dominica ; but men and women seemed as if 
they had not a care in the world. We passed Up Park Camp 
and the cantonments of the West India regiments, and then 
through a ' scrub ' of dwarf acacia and blue-flowered lignum 
vitae. Handsome villas were spread along the road with lawns 
and gardens, and the road itself was as excellent as those in 
Barbadoes. Half an hours drive brought us to the lodge, 
and through the park to the King's House itself, which 
14 



210 The English in the West Indies. 

stands among groups of fine trees four hundred feet above 
the sea. 

All the large houses in Jamaica — and this was one of the 
largest of them — are like those in Barbadoes, with the type 
more completely developed, generally square, built of stone, 
standing on blocks, hollow underneath for circulation of air, 
and approached by a broad flight of steps. On the three 
sides which the sun touches, deep verandahs or balconies are 
thrown out on the first and second floors, closed in front by 
green blinds, which can be shut either completely or par- 
tially, so that at a distance they look like houses of cards or 
great green boxes, made pretty by the trees which shelter 
them or the creepers which climb over them. Behind the 
blinds run long airy darkened galleries, and into these the 
sitting rooms open, which are of course still darker with a 
subdued green light, in which, till you are used to it, you can 
hardly read. The floors are black, smooth, and polished, with 
loose mats for carpets. The reader of 'Tom Cringle' will re- 
member Tom's misadventure when he blundered into a party 
of pretty laughing girls, slipped on one of these floors with a 
retrospective misadventure, and could not rise till his creole 
cousin slipped a petticoat over his head. All the arrange- 
ments are made to shut out heat and light. The galleries 
have sofas to lounge upon — everybody smokes, and smokes 
where he pleases ; the draught sweeping away all residuary 
traces. At the King's House to increase the accommodation a 
large separate dining saloon has been thrown out on the north 
side, to which you descend from the drawing room by stairs, 
and thence along a covered passage. Among the mango 
trees behind there is a separate suite of rooms for the aides-de- 
camp, and a superb swimming bath sixty feet long and eight 
feet deep. Altogether it was a sumptuous sort of palace 
where a governor with 7,000/. a year might spend his term of 
office with considerable comfort were it not haunted by rec~ 



King's House. 211 

ollections of poor Eyre. He, it seems, lived in the ' King's 
House,' and two miles off, within sight of his windows, lived 
Gordon. 

I had a more than gracious welcome from Colonel J 

and his family. In him I found a high-bred soldier, who had 
served with distinction in India, who had been at the storm 
of Delhi, and who was close by when Nicholson was shot. 
No one could have looked fitter for the post which he now 
temporarily occupied. I felt uncomfortable at being thus 
thrust upon his hospitality. I had letters of introduction 
with me to the various governors of the islands, but on Colo- 
nel J I had no claim at all. I was not even aware of his 

existence, or he, very likely, of mine. If not he, at any rate 
the ladies of his establishment, might reasonably look upon 
me as a bore, and if I had been allowed I should simply have 
paid my respects and have gone on to my mulatto. But they 
would not hear of it. They were so evidently hearty in their 
invitation to me that I could only submit and do my best not 
to be a bore, the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. 

In the circle into which I was thrown I was unlikely to 
hear much of West Indian politics or problems. Colonel 

J was acting as governor by accident, and for a few 

months only. He had his professional duties to look after ; 
his term of service in Jamaica had nearly expired ; and he 
could not trouble himself with possibilities and tendencies 
with which he would have no personal concern. As a specta- 
tor he considered probably that we were not making much of 
the West ludies, and were not on the way to make much. 
He confirmed the complaint which I had heard so often, that 
the blacks would not work for wages more than three days 
in the week, or regularly upon those, preferring to cultivate 
their own yams and sweet potatoes ; but as it was admitted 
that they did work one way or another at home, I could not 
see that there was much to complain of. The blacks were 



212 The Caribs. 

only doing as we do. We, too, only work as much as we like 
or as we must, and we prefer working for ourselves to work- 
ing for others. 

On his special subjects the Colonel was as interesting as he 
could not help being. He talked of the army and of the re- 
cent changes in it without insisting that it was going to th* 
devil. He talked of India and the Russians, and for a won- 
der he had no Russophobia. He thought that England and 
Russia might as easily be friends as enemies, and that it 
would be better for the world if they were. As this had been 
my own fixed opinion for the last thirty years, I thought him 
a very sensible man. In the evening there was a small din- 
ner party, made up chiefly of officers from the West Indian 
regiments at Kingston. The English troops are in the moun- 
tains at Newcastle, four or five thousand feet up and beyond 
common visiting distance. Among those whom I met on this 
occasion was an officer who struck me particularly. There 
was a mystery about his origin. He had risen from the ranks, 
but was evidently a gentleman by birth ; he had seen service 
all over the "world ; he had been in Chili, and, among his 
other accomplishments, spoke Spanish fluently ; he entered 
the English army as a private, had been in the war in the 
Transvaal, and was the only survivor of the regiment which 
was surprised and shot down by the Boers in an intricate pass 
where they could neither retreat nor defend themselves. On 
that occasion he had escaped and saved the colours, for which 
he was rewarded by a commission. He was acquainted with 
many of my friends there who had been in the thick of the 
campaign ; knew Sir Owen Lanyon, Sir Morrison Barlow, and 
Colley. He had surveyed the plateau on Majuba Hill after 
the action. I had heard one side of the story from a Boer 

officer ; from Mr. I heard the other ; and they were not 

very unlike. Both agreed that the ball which killed Colley 
did not come from a Dutch rifle. My Boer informant said 



Recollections of the Boer War. 213 

that be was last seen trying to rally a party of Lis own men 
who were running. They wheeled round and fired wildly. 
Colley was six or eight yards behind them. One of the 
balls struck him and he fell dead. Mr. said that, see- 
ing the day irreparably lost, and his own reputation shat- 
tered along with it, he was generally believed to have shot 
himself. Friend and foe alike loved Colley, and legends like 
these are an unconscious tribute to his memory. The truth 
can never be known. We believe as we wish or as we fancy. 

Mr. was so fine an officer, so clever a man, and so reserved 

about his personal affairs, that about him too ' myths ' were 
growing. He was credited in the mess room with being the 
then unknown author of ' Solomon's Mines.' Mr. Haggard 

will forgive a mistake which, if he knows Mr. , he will 

feel to be a compliment. 

From general conversation I gathered that the sanguine 
views of the Colonial Secretary were not widely shared. The 
English interest was still something in Jamaica ; but the phe- 
nomena of the Antilles were present there also, if in a less ex- 
treme form. There were 700,000 coloured people in the isl- 
and, but 14,000 or 15,000 whites ; and the blacks there also 
were increasing rapidly, and the whites were stationary if not 
declining. There was the same uneasy social jealous}', and 
the absence of any social relation between the two races. 
There were mulattoes in the island of wealth and consequence, 
and at Government House there are no distinctions ; but 
the English residents of pure colonial blood would not asso- 
ciate with them, social exclusiveness increasing with political 
equality. The blacks disliked the mulattoes ; the mulattoes 
despised the blacks, and would not intermarry with them. 
The impression was that the mulatto would die out, that the 
tendency of the whites and blacks was to a constantly sharpen- 
ing separation, and that if things went on as they were going 
for another generation, it was easy to see which of the two 



214 The English in the West Indies. 

colours would then be in the ascendant. The blacks were 
growing saucy, too ; with much else of the same kind. I 
could but listen and wait to judge for myself. 

Meanwhile my quarters were unexceptionable, my kind en- 
tertainers leaving nothing undone to make my stay with them 
agreeable. In hot climates one sleeps lightly ; but light sleep 
is all that one wants, and one wakes early. The swimming 
bath was waiting for me underneath my window. After a 
plunge in the clear cold water came coffee, grown and dried 
and roasted on the spot, and ' made ' as such coffee ought 
to be. Then came the early walk. One missed the tropical 
luxuriance of Trinidad and Dominica, for the winter months 
in Jamaica are almost rainless; but it would have been 
beautiful anywhere else, and the mango trees were in their 
glory. There was a corner given to orchids, which were hung 
in baskets and just coming into flower. Lizards swarmed in 
the sunshine, running up the tree trunks, or basking on the 
garden seats. Snakes there are none ; the mongoose has 
cleared them all away so completely that there is nothing left 
for him to eat but the poultry, in which he makes havoc, and, 
having been introduced to exterminate the vermin, has be- 
come a vermin himself. 

To drive, to ride, to visit was the employment of the days. 
I saw the country. I saw what people were doing, and heard 
what they had to say. 

The details are mostly only worth forgetting., The senior 

aide-de-camp, Captain C , an officer in the Engineers, was 

a man of ability and observation. He, too, like the Colonel, 
was more interested in his profession, to which he was anx- 
ious to return, than in the waning fortunes of the West In- 
dies. He superintended, however, the social part of the gov- 
ernor's business to perfection. Anything which I wished for 
had only to be mentioned to be provided. He gave me the 
benefit too, though less often than I could have wished, of his 



The Mountain Station. 215 

shrewd, and not ungenial, observations. He drove me one 
morning into Kingston. I had passed through it hastily on 
the day of my landing. There were libraries, museums, pub- 
lic offices, and such like to be seen, besides the town itself. 
High up on the mountain side, more often in the clouds than 
out of them, the cantonments of the English regiments were 
visible from the park at Government House. The slope 
where they had been placed was so steep that one wondered 
how they held on. They looked like tablecloths stretched 
out to dry. I was to ride up there one day. Meanwhile, as 
we were driving through the park and saw the white spots 
shining up above us, I asked the aide-de-camp what the pri- 
vates found to do in such a place. The ground was too steep 
for athletics ; no cricket could be possible there, no lawn 
tennis, no quoits, no anything. There were no neighbours. 
Sports there were none. The mongoose had destroyed the 
winged game, and there was neither hare nor rabbit, pig nor 
deer ; not a wild animal to be hunted and killed. Y/ith 
nothing to do, no one to speak to, and nothing to kill, what 
could become of them ? Did they drink ? Well, yes. They 
drank rum occasionally ; but there were no public-houses. 
They could only get it at the canteen, and the daily allowance 
was moderate. As to beer, it was out of reach altogether. 
At the foot of the mountains it was double the price which 
it was in England. At Newcastle the price w T as doubled 
again by the cost of carriage to the camp. I inquired if they 
did not occasionally hang themselves. ' Perhaps they would,* 
he said, ' if they had no choice, but they preferred to desert, 
and this they did in large numbers. They slipped down the 
back of the range, made their way to the sea, and escaped 
to the United States.' The officers — what became of them? 
The officers ! Oh, well ! they gardened ! Did they like it ? 
Some did and some didn't. They were not so ill off as the 
men, as occasionally they could come down on leave. 



216 The English in the West Indies. 

One wondered what the process had been which had led 
the authorities to select such a situation. Of course it was for 
the health of the troops, but the hill country in Jamaica is 
wide ; there were many other places available, less utterly 
detestable, and ennui and discontent are as mischievous as 

fever. General ■ , a short time ago, went up to hold an 

inquiry into the desertions, and expressed his wonder how 
such things could be. With such air, such scenery, such 
views far and wide over the island, what could human creat- 
ures wish for more ? ' You would desert yourself, general,' 
said another officer, ' if you were obliged to stay there a 
month.' 

Captain C undertook that I should go up myself in a 

day or two. He promised to write and make arrangements. 
Meanwhile we went on to Kingston. It was not beautiful. 
There was Rodney's statue. Rodney is venerated in Jamaica, 
as he ought to be ; but for him it would have been a Spanish 
colony again. But there is nothing grand about the build- 
ings, nothing even handsome, nothing even specially char- 
acteristic of England or the English mind. They were once 
perhaps business-like, and business having slackened they 
are now dingy. Shops, houses, wharves, w 7 ant brightness 
and colour. We called at the office of the Colonial Secretary, 
the central point of the administration. It was an old man- 
sion, plain, unambitious, sufficient perhaps for its purpose, 
but lifeless and dark. If it represented economy there would 
be no objection. The public debt has doubled since it be- 
came a Crown colony. In 1876 it was half a million. It is 
iow more than a million and a half. The explanation is the ' 
extension of the railway system, and there has been no culpa- 
ble extravagance. I do not suppose that the re-establishment 
of a constitution would mend matters. Democracies are al- 
ways extravagant. The majority, who have little property 
or none, regulate the expenditure. They lay the taxes on 



Public Expenditure. 217 

the minority, who have to find the money, and have no in- 
terest in sparing them. 

Ireland when it was governed by the landowners, Jamaica 
in the days of slavery, were administered at a cost which 
seems now incredibly small. The authority of the landowners 
and of the planters was undisputed. They were feared and 
obeyed, and magistrates unpaid and local constables sufficed 
to maintain tolerable order. Their authority is gone. Their 
functions are transferred to the police, and every service has 
to be paid for. There may be fewer serious crimes, but the 
subordination is immeasurably less, the expense of adminis- 
tration is immeasurably greater. I declined to be taken over 
sugar mills, or to be shown the latest improvements. I was 
too ignorant to understand in what the improvements con- 
sisted, and could take them upon trust. The public bakery 
was more interesting. In tropical climates a hot oven in a 
small house makes an inconvenient addition to the temper- 
ature. The bread for Kingston, and for many miles around it, 
is manufactured at night by a single company and is distribut- 
ed in carts in the morning. "We saw the museum and public 
library. There were the usual specimens of island antiquities 
— of local fish, birds, insects, reptiles, plants, geological for- 
mations, and such like. In the library were old editions of 
curious books at the West Indies, some of them unique, ready 
to yield ampler pictures of the romance of the old life there 
than we at present possess. I had but leisure to glance at 
title-pages and engravings. The most noticeable relic pre- 
served there, if it be only genuine, is the identical bauble which 
Cromwell ordered to be taken away from the Speaker's table 
in the House of Commons. Explanations are given of the 
manner in which it came to Jamaica. The evidence, so far 
as I could understand it, did not appear conclusive. 

Among the new industries in the island in the place of sugar 
was, or ought to be, tobacco. A few years ago I asked Sir 



-218 The English in the West Indies. 

W. Hooker, the chief living authority in such matters, why 
Cuba was allowed the monopoly of delicate cigar tobacco — 
whether there were no other countries where it could be 
grown equally good. He said that at the very moment cigars, 
as fine as the finest Havanas, were being produced in Jamaica. 
He gave me an excellent specimen with the address of the 
house which supplied it ; and for a year or two I was able to 
buy from it what, if not perfect, was more than tolerable. 
The house acquired a reputation ; and then, for some reason 
or other, perhaps from weariness of the same flavour, perhaps 
from a falling off in the character of the cigars, I, and possibly 
others, began to be less satisfied. Here on the spot I wished 

to mate another experiment. Captain C introduced me 

to a famous manufacturer, a Spaniard, with a Spanish mana- 
ger under him who had been trained at Havana. I bespoke 
his good will by adjuring him in his own tongue not to dis- 
appoint me ; and I believe that he gave me the best that he 
had. But, alas ! it is with tobccco as with most other things. 
Democracy is king ; and the greatest happiness of the great- 
est number is the rule of modern life. The average of every- 
thing is higher than it used to be ; the high quality which 
rises above mediocrity is rare or is non-existent. We are 
swept away by the genius of the age, and must be content 
with such other blessings as it has been pleased to bring with 
it. 

Why should I murmur thus and vainly moan ? 
The gods will have it so — their will be done, ' 

The earth is patient also, and allows the successive genera- 
tions of human creatures to play their parts upon her surface 
as they please. She spins on upon her own course ; and seas 
and skies, and crags and forests, are spiritual and beautiful 
as ever. 

1 Euripides. 



Valley in the Blue Mountains. 219 

Gordon's Town is a straggling village in the Blue Range 

underneath Newcastle. Colonel J had a villa there, and 

one afternoon he took me over to see it. You pass abruptly 
from the open country into the mountains. The way to 
Gordon's Town was by the side of the Hope river, which cuts 
its way out of them in a narrow deep ravine. The stream 
was now trickling faintly among the stones ; the enormous 
boulders in the bed were round as cannon balls, and weigh- 
ing hundreds of tons, show what its power must be in the 
coming down of the floods. Within the limits of the torrent, 
which must rise at such times thirty feet above its winter 
level, the rocks were bare and stern, no green thing being 
able to grow there. Above the line the tropical vegetation 
was in all its glory : ferns and plantains waving in the moist 
air ; cedars, tamarinds, gum trees, orange trees striking their 
roots among the clefts of the crags, and hanging out over the 
abysses below them. Aloes flung up their tall spiral stems ; 
flowering shrubs and creepers covered bank and slope with 
green and blue and white and yellow, and above and over 
our heads, as we drove along, stood out the great limestone 
blocks which thunder down when loosened by the rain. 
Farther up the hill sides, where the slopes are less precipi- 
tous, the forest has been burnt off by the unthrifty blacks, who 
use fire to clear the ground for their yam gardens, and destroy 
the timber over a dozen acres when they intend to cultivate 
but a single one. The landscape suffers less than the soil. 
The effect to the eye is merely that the mountains in Jamaica, 
as in temperate climates, become bare at a moderate altitude, 
and their outlines stand out sharper against the sky. 

Introduced among scenery of this kind, we followed the 
river two or three miles, when it was crossed by a bridge, 
above which stood my friend Miss Burton's lodging house, 
where she had designed entertaining me. At Gordon's Town, 
which is again a mile farther on, the valley widens out, and 



220 The English in the West Indies. 

there are cocoa and coffee plantations. Through an opening 
we saw far above our heads, like specks of snow against the 
mountain side, the homes or prisons of our unfortunate 
troops. Overlooking the village through which we were 
passing, and three hundred feet above it, was perched the 
Colonel's villa on a projecting spur where a tributary of the 
Hope river has carved out. a second ravine. We drove to 
the door up a steep winding lane among coffee bushes, 
which scented the air with their jessamine-like blossom, 
and wild oranges on which the fruit hung untouched, glow- 
ing like balls of gold. We were now eleven hundred feet 
above the sea. The air was already many degrees cooler than 
at Kingston. The ground in front of the house was levelled 
for a garden. Ivy was growing about the trellis work, and 
scarlet geraniums and sweet violets and roses, which cannot 
be cultivated in the lower regions, were here in full bloom. 
Elsewhere in the grounds there was a lawn tennis court to 
tempt the officers down from their eyrie in the clouds. The 
house was empty, in charge of servants. From the balcony 
in front of the drawing room we saw peak rising behind peak, 
till the highest, four thousand feet above us, was lost in the 
white mist. Below was the valley of the Hope river with its 
gardens and trees and scattered huts, with buildings here and 
there of higher pretensions. On the other side the tributary 
stream rushed down its own ravine, while the breeze among 
the trees and the sound of the falling waters swayed up to us 
in intermittent pulsations. 

The place had been made, I believe, in the days of planta- 
tion prosperity. What would become of it all, if Jamaica 
drifted after her sisters in the Antilles, as some persons 
thought that she was drifting, and became, like Grenada, an 
island of small black proprietors? Was such a fate really 
hanging over her ? Not necessarily, not by any law of nature. 
If it came, it would come from the dispiritment, the lack of 





VALLEY IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. JAMAICA. 



Valley in the Blue Mountains. 221 

energy and hope in the languid representatives of the English 
colonists ; for the land even in the mountains will grow what 
it is asked to grow, and men do not live by sugar alone ; and 
my friend Dr. Nicholl in Dominica had shown what English 
energy could do if it was alive and vigorous. The pale com- 
plaining beings of whom I saw too many, seemed as if they 
could not be of the same race as the men who ruled in 
the days of the slave trade. The question to be asked in 
every colony is, what sort of men is it rearing ? If that can- 
not be answered satisfactorily, the rest is not worth caring/ 
for. The blacks do not deserve the ill that is spoken of them. J 
The Colonel's house is twelve miles from Kingston. He told 
me that a woman would walk in with a load for him, and re- 
turn on the same day with another, for a shilling. With, 
such material of labour wisely directed, whites and blacks- 
might live and prosper together ; but even the poor negro' 
will not work when he is regarded only as a machine to bring! 
grist to his master's milL 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Visit to Port Royal — Dockyard — Town — Church — Fort Augusta — The 
eyrie in the mountains — Ride to Newcastle — Society in Jamaica — 
Religious bodies — Liberty and authority. 

A new fort was being built at the mouth of the harbour. 
New batteries were being armed on the sandbanks at Port 

Royal. Colonel J had to inspect what was going on, and 

he allowed me to go with him. We were to lunch with the 
commodore of the station at the Port Royal dockyard. I 
could then see the town — or what was left of it, for the story 
went that half of it had been swallowed up by an earthquake. 
We ran out from Kingston, passing under the sterns of the 
Spanish frigates. I was told that there were always one or 
more Spanish ships of war stationed there, but no one knew 
anything about them except generally that they were on the 
look-out for Cuban conspirators. There w T as no exchange 
of courtesies between their officers and ours, nor even offi- 
cial communication beyond what was formally necessary. I 
thought it strange, but it was no business of mine. My sur- 
prise, however, was admitted to be natural. As the launch 
drew little water, we had no occasion to follow the circuitous 
channel, but went straight over the shoals. We passed close 
by Gallows Point, where the Johnny crows used to pick the 
pirates' bones. In the mangrove swamp adjoining, it was 
said that there was an old Spanish cemetery ; but the swamp 
Avas poisonous, and no one had ever seen it. At the dock- 
yard pier the commodore was waiting for us. I found that 
he was an old acquaintance whom I had met ten years before 



Port Royal. 223 

at the Cape. He was a brisk, smart officer, quiet and sailor- 
like in bis manners, but with plenty of talent and cultivation. 
He showed us his stores and his machinery, large engines, 
and engineers to work them, ready for any work which might 
be wanted, but apparently with none to do. We went over 
the hospital, airy and clean, with scarcely a single occupant, 
so healthy has now been made a spot which was once a nest 
of yellow fever. Naval stores soon become antiquated ; and 
parts of the great square were paved with the old cannon 
balls which had become useless on the introduction of rifled 
guns. The fortifications were antiquated also, 'but new works 
were being thrown up armed with the modern monster can- 
non. One difficulty struck me ; Port Royal stood upon a 
sand-bank. In such a place no spring of fresh water could be 
looked for. On the large acreage of roofs there were no 
shoots to catch the rain and carry it into cisterns. Whence 
did the water come for the people in the town ? How were 
the fleets supplied which used to ride there ? How was it in 
the old times when Port Royal was crowded with revelling 
crews of buccaneers ? I found that every drop which is con- 
sumed in the place, or which is taken on board either of mer- 
chant ship or man-of-war, is brought in a steam tug from a 
spring eight miles off upon the coast. Before steam came in, 
it was fetched in barges rowed by hand. Nothing could be 
easier than to save the rain which falls in abundance. Noth- 
ing could be easier than to lay pipes along the sand-spit to 
the spring. But the tug plies daily to and fro, and no one 
thinks more about the matter. 

A West Indian regiment is stationed at Port Royal. 
After the dockyard we went through the soldiers' quarters 
and then walked through the streets of the once famous 
station. It is now a mere hamlet of boatmen and fishermen, 
squalid and wretched, without and within. Half-naked 
children stared at us from the doors with their dark, round 



224 The English in the West Indies. 

eyes. I found it hard to call up the scenes of riot, and con- 
fusion, and wild excitement which are alleged to have been 
witnessed there. The story that it once covered a far larger 
area has been, perhaps, invented to account for the incon- 
gruity. Old plans exist which seem to show that the end of 
the spit could never have been of any larger dimensions than 
it is at present. There is proof enough, however, that in the 
sand there lie the remains of many thousand English sol- 
diers and seamen, who ended their lives there for one cause 
or other. Tho bones lie so close that they are turned up as 
in a country churchyard when a fresh grave is dug. The 
walls of the old church are inlaid thickly with monuments 
and monumental tablets to the memory of officers of either 
service, young and old ; some killed by fever, some by acci- 
dents of war or sea ; some decorated with the honours which 
they had won in a hundred fights, some carried off before 
they had gathered the first flower of fame. The costliness of 
many of these memorials was an affecting indication how 
precious to their families those now resting there once had 
been. One in high relief struck me as a characteristic speci- 
men of Rubillac's workmanship. It was to a young lieuten- 
ant who had been killed by the bursting of a gun. Flame 
and vapour were rushing out of the breech. The youth him- 
self was falling backwards, with his arms spread out, and a 
vast preternatural face — death, judgment, eternity, or what- 
ever it was meant to be — was glaring at him through the 
smoke. Bad art, though the execution was remarkable ; but 
better, perhaps, than the weeping angels now grown common 
among ourselves. 

After luncheon the commodore showed us his curiosities, 
especially his garden, which, considering the state of his 
water supply, he had created under unfavourable conditions. 
He had a very respectable collection of tropical ferns and 
flowers, with palms and plantains to shade and shelter them. 



Fort Augusta. 225 

He was an artist besides, within the lines of his own profes- 
sion. Drawings of ships and boats of all sorts and in all at- 
titudes by his own brush or pencil were hanging on the walls 
of his working room. He was good enough to ask me to 
spend a day or two with him at Port Royal before I left the 
island, and I looked forward with special pleasure to becom- 
ing closer acquainted with such a genuine piece of fine- 
grained British oak. 

There were the usual ceremonies to be attended to. The 
officers of the guardship and gunboats had to be called on. 
The forts constructed, or in the course of construction, were 
duly inspected. I believe that there is a real serious inten- 
tion to strengthen Port Royal in view of the changes which 
may come about through the opening, if that event ever 
takes place, of the Darien canal. 

Our last visit was to a fort deserted, or all but deserted — 
the once too celebrated Fort Augusta, which deserves partic- 
ular description. It stands on the inner side of the lagoon 
commanding the deep-water channel at the point of the great 
mangrove swamp at the mouth of the Cobre river. For the 
purpose for which it was intended no better situation could 
have been chosen, had there been nothing else to be consid- 
ered except the defence of the harbour, for a vessel trying to 
reach Kingston had to pass close in front of its hundred 
guns. It was constructed on a scale becoming its impor- 
tance, with accommodation for two or three regiments, and 
the regiments were sent thither, and they perished, regiment 
after regiment, officers and men, from the malarious exhala- 
tions of the morass. Whole battalions were swept away. 
The ranks were filled up by reinforcements from home, and 
these, too, went the same road. Of one regiment the only 
survivors, according to the traditions of the place, were a 
quartermaster and a corporal. Finally it occurred to the 
authorities at the Horse Guards that a regiment of Hussar3 
15 



226 The English in the West Indies. 

would be a useful addition to the garrison. It was not easy 
to see what Hussars were to do there. There is not a spot 
where the horses could stand twenty yards beyond the lines ; 
nor could they reach Fort Augusta at all except in barges. 
However, it was perhaps well that they were sent. Horses 
and men went the way of the rest. The loss of the men 
might have been supplied, but horses were costly, and the 
loss of them was more serious. Fort Augusta was gradually 
abandoned, and is now used only as a powder magazine. A 
guard is kept there of twenty blacks from the West Indian 
force, but even these are changed every ten days — so deadly 
the vapour of that malarious jungle is now understood to be. 

I never saw so spectral a scene as met my eyes when we 
steamed up to the landing place — ramparts broken down, 
and dismantled cannon lying at the foot of the wall over- 
grown by jungle. The sentinel who presented arms was 
like a corpse in uniform. He was not pale, for he was a 
negro — he was green, and he looked like some ghoul or afrite 
in a ghastly cemetery. The roofs of the barracks and store- 
houses had fallen in, the rafters being left standing with the 
light shining between them as through the bones of skele- 
tons. Great piles of shot lay rusting, as not worth removal ; 
among them conical shot, so recently had this fatal charncl 
house been regarded as a fit location for British artillery- 
men. 

I breathed more freely as we turned our backs upon 
the hideous memorial of parliamentary administration, and 
steamed away into a purer air. My conservative instincts 
had undergone a shock. As we look back into the past, the 
brighter features stand out conspicuously. The mistakes 
and miseries have sunk in the shade and are forgotten. In 
the present faults and merits are visible alike. The faults 
attract chief notice that they may be mended ; and as there 
seem so many of them, the impulse is to conclude that the 



Newcastle. 227 

past was better. It is well to be sometimes reminded what 
the past really was. In Colonel J I found a strong ad- 
vocate of the late army reforms. Thanks to recovering 
energy and more distinct conscientiousness, thanks to the 
all-seeing eye of the Press, such an experiment as that of 
Fort Augusta could hardly be tried again, or if tried could 
not be persisted in. Extravagance and absurdities, however, 
remain, and I was next to witness an instance of them. 

Having ceased to quarter our regiments in mangrove 
swamps, we now build a camp for them among the clouds. 

I mentioned that Captain C had undertaken that I should 

see Newcastle. He had written to a friend there to say that 
I was coming up, and the junior aide-de-camp kindly lent his 
services as a guide. As far as Gordon's Town we drove along 
the same road which we had followed before. There, at a 
small wayside inn, we found horses waiting which were ac- 
customed to the mountain. Suspicious mists were hanging 
about aloft, but the landlord, after a glance at them, prom- 
ised us a fine day, and we mounted and set off. My animal's 
merits were not in his appearance, but he had been up and 
down a hundred times, and might be trusted to accomplish 
his hundred and first without misfortune. For the first mile 
or so the road was tolerably level, following the bank of the 
river under the shade of the forest. It then narrowed into a 
horse path and zigzagged upwards at the side of a torrent 
into the deep pools of which we occasionally looked down 
over the edges of uncomfortable precipices. Then again 
there was a level, with a village and coffee plantations and 
oranges and bananas. After this the vegetation changed. 
We issued out upon open mountain, with English grass, 
English clover, English gorse, and other familiar acquaint- 
ances introduced to make the isolation less intolerable. The 
track was so rough and narrow that Ave could ride only in 
single file, and was often no better than a watercourse ; yet 



228 The English in the West Indies. 

by this and no other way every article had to be carried on 
donkeys' backs or human heads which was required for the 
consumption of 300 infantry and 100 artillerymen. Artillery- 
men might seem to imply artillery, but they have only a single 
small field gun. They are there for health's sake only, and 
to be fit for work if wanted below. An hour's ride brought 
us to the lowest range of houses, which were 4,000 feet above 
the sea. From thence they rose, tier above tier, for 500 feet 
more. The weather so far had held up, and the views had 
been glorious, but we passed now into cloud, through which 
we saw, dimly, groups of figures listlessly lounging. The 
hillside was bare, and the slope so steep that there was no 
standing on it, save where it had been flattened by the spade ; 
and here in this extraordinary place were 400 young Eng- 
lishmen of the common type of which soldiers are made, 
with nothing to do and nothing to enjoy — remaining, unless 
they desert or die of ennui, for one, two, or three years, as 
their chance may be. Every other day they can see nothing, 
save each other's forms and faces in the fog ; for, fine and 
bright as the air may be below, the moisture in the air is 
condensed into cloud by the chill rock and soil of the high 
ranges. The officers come down now and then on furlough 
or on duty ; the men rarely and hardly at all, and soldiers, 

in spite of General ■ , cannot always be made happy by 

the picturesque. They are not educated enough to find em- 
ployment for their minds, and of amusement there is none. 

We continued our way up, the track if anything growing 
steeper, till we reached the highest point of the camp, and 
found ourselves before a pretty cottage with creepers climb- 
ing about it belonging to the major in command. A few 
yards off was the officers' mess room. They expected us. 
They knew my companion, and visitors from the under-world 
were naturally welcome. The major was an active clever 
man, with a bright laughing Irish wife, whose relations in 



Newcastle. 229 

the old country were friends of my own. The American 
consul and his lady happened to have ridden up also the 
same day ; so, in spite of fog, which grew thicker every mo- 
ment, we had a good time. As to seeing, we could see noth- 
ing ; but then there was nothing to see except views ; and 
panoramic views from mountain tops, extolled as they may 
be, do not particularly interest me. The officers, so far as I 
could learn, are less ill off than the privates. Those who are 
married have their wives with them ; they can read, they can 
draw, they can ride ; they have gardens about their houses 
Avhere they can grow English flowers and vegetables and 
try experiments. Science can be followed anywhere, and 

is everywhere a resource. Major told me that he had 

never known what it was to find the day too long. Healthy 
the camp is at any rate. The temperature never rises above 
70° nor sinks often below 60°. They require charcoal fires 
to keep the damp out and blankets to sleep under ; and when 
they see the sun it is an agreeable change and something to 
talk about. There are no large incidents, but small ones do 
instead. While I was there a man came to report that he 
had slipped by accident and set a stone rolling ; the stone 
had cut a water pipe in two, and it had to be mended, and 
was an afternoon's work for somebody. Such officers as have 
no resources in themselves are, of course, bored to extinction. 
There is neither furred game to hunt nor feathered game to 
shoot ; the mongoose has eaten up the partridges. I sug- 
gested that they should import two or three couple of bears 
from Norway ; they would fatten and multiply among the 
roots and sugar canes, with a black piccaninny now and then 
for a special delicacy. One of the party extemporised us a 
speech which would be made on the occasion in Exeter Hall. 
We had not seen the w r orst of the weather. As we mount- 
ed to ride back the fog changed to rain, and the rain to a 
delude. The track became a torrent. Macintoshes were a 



230 The English in the West Indies. 

-vanity, for the water rushed down one's neck, and every 
crease made itself into a conduit carrying the stream among 
one's inner garments. Dominica itself had not prepared me 
for the violence of these Jamaican downpourings. False had 
proved our prophet down below. There was no help for it 
but to go on ; and we knew by experience that one does not 
melt on these occasions. At a turn of the road we met 
another group of riders, among them Lady N , who, dur- 
ing her husband's absence in England, was living at a coun- 
try house in the hills. She politely stopped and would have 
spoken, but it was not weather to stand talking in ; the tor- 
rent washed us apart. 

And now comes the strangest part of the story. A thou- 
sand feet down we passed out below the clouds into clear 
bright sunshine. Above us it was still black as ever ; the 
vapour clung about the peaks and did not leave them. Un- 
derneath us and round us it was a lovely summer's day. The 
farther we descended the fewer the signs that any rain had 
fallen. When we reached the stables at Gordon's Town, the 
dust was on the road as we left it, and the horsekeeper con- 
gratulated us on the correctness of his forecast. Clothes 
soon dry in that country, and we drove down home none the 
worse for our wetting. I was glad to have seen a place of 
which I had heard so much. On the whole, I hoped that 
perhaps by-and-by the authorities may discover some camp- 
ing ground for our poor soldiers halfway between the In- 
ferno of Fort Augusta and the Caucasian cliffs to which they 
are chained like Prometheus. Malice did say that Newcastle 

was the property of a certain Sir , a high official of a past 

generation, who wished to part with it, and found a conven- 
ient purchaser in the Government. 

The hospitalities at Government House were well main- 
tained under the J administration. The colonel was 

gracious, the lady beautiful and brilliant. There were lawn 



Parties at Government House. 231 

parties and evening parties, when all that was best iii the isl- 
and was collected ; the old Jamaican aristocracy, army and 
navy officers, civilians, eminent lawyers, a few men among 
them of high intelligence. The tone was old-fashioned and 
courteous, with little, perhaps too little, of the go-a-headism 
of younger colonies, but not the less agreeable on that ac- 
count. As to prospects, or the present condition of things 
in the island, there were wide differences of opinion. If 
there was unanimity about anything, it was about the con- 
sequences likely to arise from an extension of the principle of 
self-government. There, at all events, lay the right road to 
the wrong place. The blacks had nothing to complain of, 
and the wrong at present was on the other side. The taxa- 
tion falls heavily on the articles consumed by the upper 
classes. The duty on tea, for instance, was a shilling a 
pound, and the duties on other luxuries in the same propor- 
tion. It did not touch the negroes at all. They were acquir- 
ing land, and some thought that there ought to be a land tax. 
They would probably object and resist, and trouble would 
come if it was proposed, for the blacks object to taxes ; as 
long as there are white men to pay them, they will be satis- 
fied to get the benefit of the expenditure. But let not their 
English friends suppose that when they have the island for 
their own they will tax themselves for police or schools, or 
for any other of those educational institutions from which the 
believers in progress anticipate such glorious results. 

As to the planters, it seemed agreed that when an estate 
was unencumbered and the owner resided upon it and man- 
aged it himself, he could still keep afloat. It was agreed also 
that when the owner was an absentee the cost of management 
consumed all the profits, and thus the same impulse to sell 
which had gone so far in the Antilles was showing itself more 
and more in Jamaica also. Fine properties all about the isl- 
and were in the market for any price which purchasers could 



232 The English in the West Indies. 

be found to give. Too many even of the old English families 
were tired of the struggle, and were longing to be out of it 
at any cost. 

At one time we heard much of the colonial Church and the 
power which it was acquiring, and as it seems unlikely that 
the political authority of the white race will be allowed to 
reassert itself, it must be through their minds and through 
/those other qualities which religion addresses that the black 
race will be influenced by the white, if it is ever to be influ- 
enced at all. 

I had marked the respect with which the Catholic clergy 
were treated in Dominica, and even the Hayti Republic still 
maintains the French episcopate and priesthood. But I could 
not find that the Church of England in Jamaica either was at 
present or had ever been more than the Church of the English 
in Jamaica, respected as long as the English gentry were a 
dominant power there, but with no independent charm to 
work on imagination or on superstition. Labat says, as I 
noted above, that the English clergy in his time did not bap- 
tise the black babies, on the curious ground that Christians 
could not lawfully be held as slaves, and the slaves therefore 
were not to be made Christians. A Jesuit Father whom I 
met at Government House told me that even now the clergy 
refuse to baptise the illegitimate children, and as, according 
to the official returns, two-thirds of the children that are born 
in Jamaica come into the world thus irregularly, they are not 
likely to become more popular than they used to be. Per- 
haps Father was doing what a good many other people 

do, making a general practice out of a few instances. Per- 
haps the blacks themselves who wish their children to be 
Christians carry them to the minister whom they prefer, and 
that minister may not be the Anglican clergyman. Of Catho- 
lics there are not many in Jamaica ; of the Moravians I heard 
on all sides the warmest praise. They, above all the religious 



Influences of Religion. 233 

bodies in the island, are admitted to have a practical power 
for good over the limited number of people which belong to 
them. But the Moravians are but a few. They do not rush 
to make converts in the highways and hedges, and my obser- 
vations in Dominica almost led me to wish that, in the ab- 
sence of other forms of spiritual authority, the Catholics 
might become more numerous than they are. The priests in| 
Dominica were the only Europeans who, for their own sakes 
and on independent grounds, were looked up to with fear 
and respect. 

The religion of the future ! That is the problem of prob- 
lems that rises before us at the close of this waning century. 
The future of the West Indies is a small matter. Yet that, 
too, like all else, depends on the spiritual beliefs which are 
to rise out of the present confusion. Men will act well and 
wisely, or ill and foolishly, according to the form and force 
of their conceptions of duty. Once before, under the Koman 
Empire, the conditions were not wholly dissimilar. The in- 
herited creed had become unbelievable, and the scientific in- 
tellect was turning materialist. Christianity rose out of the 
chaos, confounding statesmen and philosophers, and became 
the controlling power among mankind for 1,800 years. But 
Christianity found a soil prepared for the seed. The masses 
of the inhabitants of the Koman world were not materialist. 
The masses of the people believed already in the supernatural 
and in penal retribution after death for their sins. Lucretius 
complains of the misery produced upon them by the terrors 
of the anticipated Tartarus. Serious and good men were 
rather turning away from atheism than welcoming it ; and if 
they doubted the divinity of the Olympian gods, it was not 
because they doubted whether gods existed at all, but becauso 
the immoralities attributed to them were unworthy of the ex- 
ilted nature of the Divine Being. The phenomena are dif- 
ferent now. "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell ? 



234 The English in the West Indies. 

The tendency of popular thought is against the supernatural 
in any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep 
as analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the 
forces which govern natural things, popular thought finds 
only uniformity and connection of cause and effect — no sign 
anywhere of a personal will which is influenced by prayer or 
moral motive. When a subject is still obscure we are con- 
fident that it admits of scientific explanation ; we no longer 
refer ' ad Deum,' whom we regard as a constitutional monarch 
taking no direct part at all. The new creed, however, not 
having crystallised as yet into a shape which can be openly 
professed, and as without any creed at all the flesh and the 
devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old names 
and forms, as we maintain the monarchy. We surround both 
with reverence and majesty, and the reverence, being con- 
fined to feeling, continues to exercise a vague but wholesome 
influence. We row in one way while we look another. In 
the presence of the marked decay of Protestantism as a posi- 
tive creed, the Protestant powers of Europe may, perhaps, 
patch up some kind of reconciliation w r ith the old spiritual 
organisation which was shattered in the sixteenth century, 
and has since shown no unwillingness to adapt itself to mod- 
ern forms of thought. The Olympian gods survived for seven 
centuries after Aristophanes with the help of allegory and 
'economy.' The Church of Kome may suiwive as long after 
Calvin and Luther. Carlyle mocked at the possibility when 
I ventured to say so to him. Yet Carlyle seemed to think 
that the mass was the only form of faith in Europe which 
had any sincerity remaining in it. 

A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian 
blacks from falling back into devil worship is still to seek. 
Constitutions and belief in progress may satisfy Europe, but 
will not answer in Jamaica. In spite of the priests, child 
murder and cannibalism have reappeared in Hayti ; but with- 



Liberty and Authority. 235 

out them things might have been worse than they are, and 
the preservation of white authority and influence in any form 
at all may be better than none. 

White authority and white influence may, however, still be 
preserved in a nobler and better way. Slavery was a sur- 
vival from a social order which had passed away, and slavery 
could not be continued. It does not follow that per se it was 
a crime. The negroes who were sold to the dealers in the 
African factories were most of them either slaves already to 
worse masters or were servi, servants in the old meaning of 
the word, prisoners of war, or else criminals, servati or re- 
served from death. They would otherwise have been hilled ; 
and since the slave trade has been abolished are again killed 
in the too celebrated 'customs.' It was a crime when the 
chiefs made war on each other for the sake of captives whom 
they could turn into money. In many instances, perhaps in 
most, it was innocent and even beneficent. Nature has made 
us unequal, and Acts of Parliament cannot make us equal. 
Some must lead and some must follow, and the question is 
only of degree and kind. For myself, I would rather be the 
slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley than the slave of a 
majority in the House of Commons or the slave of my own 
folly. Slavery is gone, with all that belonged to it ; but it 
will be an ill day for mankind if no one is to be compelled 
any more to obey those who are wiser than himself, and each 
of us is to do only what is right in our own eyes. There 
may be authority, yet not slavery : a soldier is not a slave, a 
sailor is not a slave, a child is not a slave, a wife is not a 
slave ; yet they may not live by their own wills or emanci- 
pate themselves at their own pleasure from positions in 
which nature has placed them, or into which they have them- 
selves voluntarily entered. The negroes of the West Indies 
are children, and not yet disobedient children. They have 
their dreams, but for the present they are dreams only. If 



236 The English in the West Indies. 

you enforce self-govern merit upon them when they are not 
asking for it, you may turn the dream into a reality, and wil- 
fully drive them back into the condition of their ancestors, 
from which the slave trade was the beginning of their eman- 
cipation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Church of England in Jamaica — Drive to Castleton — Botanical 
Gardens — Picnic by the river — Black women — Ball at Government 
House — Mandeville — Miss Roy — Country Society — Manners — Amer- 
ican visitors — A Moravian missionary — The modern Radical creed. 

If I have spoken without enthusiasm of the working of the 
Church of England among the negroes, I have not meant to 
be disrespectful. As I lay awake at daybreak on the Sunday 
morning after my arrival, I heard the sound of church bells, 
not Catholic bells as at Dominica, but good old English chimes. 
The Church is disestablished so far as law can disestablish it, 
but, as in Barbadoes, the royal arms still stand over the arches 
of the chancel. Introduced with the English conquest, it has 
been identified with the ruling order of English gentry, re- 
spectable, harmless, and useful, to those immediately con- 
nected with it. 

The parochial system, as in Barbadoes also, was spread 
over the island. Each parish had its church, its parsonage 
and its school, its fonts where the white children were bap- 
tised — in spite of my Jesuit, I shall hope not whites only ; 
and its graveyard, where in time they were laid to rest. 
With their quiet Sunday services of the old type the country 
districts were exact reproductions of English country villages. 
The church whose bells I had heard was of the more fashion- 
able suburban type, standing in a central situation halfway 
to Kingston. The service was at the old English hour of 
eleven. We drove to it in the orthodox fashion, with our 
prayer books and Sunday costumes, the Colonel in uniform. 



238 The English in the West Indies. 

The gentry of the neighbourhood are antiquated in their 
habits, and to go to church on Sunday is still regarded as a 
simple duty. A dozen carriages stood under the shade at 
the doors. The congregation was upper middle-class Eng- 
lish of the best sort, and was large, though almost wholly 
white. White tablets as at Port Koyal covered the walls, 
with familiar English names upon them. But for the heat I 
could have imagined myself at home. There were no Aaron 
Bangs to be seen, or Paul Gelids, with the rough sense, the 
vigour, the energy, and roystering lightheartedness of our 
grandfathers. The faces of the men were serious and thought- 
ful, with the shadow resting on them of an uncertain future. 
They are good Churchmen still, and walk on in the old paths, 
wherever those paths may lead. They are old-fashioned and 
slow to change, and are perhaps belated in an eddy of the 
great stream of progress ; but they were pleasant to see and 
pleasant to talk to. After service there were the usual shakings 
of hands among friends outside ; arrangements were made 
for amusements and expeditions in which I was invited to 
join — which were got up, perhaps, for my own entertain- 
ment. I was to be taken to the sights of the neighbour- 
hood ; I was to see this ; I was to see that ; above all, I must 
see the Peak of the Blue Mountains. The peak itself I could 
see better from below, for there it stood, never moving, be- 
tween seven and eight thousand feet high. But I had had 
mountain riding enough, and was allowed to plead my age 
and infirmities. It was arranged finally that I should be 
driven the next day to Castleton, seventeen miles off over a 
mountain pass, to see the Botanical Gardens. 

Accordingly early on the following morning we set off; 

two carriages full of us ; Mr. M , a new friend lately 

made, but I hope long to be preserved, on the box of his 
four-in-hand. The road was as good as all roads are in 
Jamaica and Barbadoes, and more cannot be said in their 



Drive to Castleton. 239 

favour. Forest trees made a roof over our heads as we climbed 
to the crest of the ridge. Thence we descended the side of a 
long valley, a stream running below us which gradually grew 
into a river. We passed through all varieties of cultivation. 
On the high ground there was a large sugar plantation, 
worked by coolies, the first whom I had seen in Jamaica. In 
the alluvial meadows on the river-side were tobacco fields, 
cleanly and carefully kept, belonging to my Spanish friend 
in Kingston, and only too rich in leaves. There was sago 
too, and ginger, and tamarinds, and cocoa, and coffee, and 
cocoa-nut palms. On the hill-sides were the garden farms of 
the blacks, and were something to see and remember. They 
receive from the Government at an almost nominal quit rent 
an acre or two of uncleared forest. To this as the first step 
they set light ; at twenty different spots we saw their fires 
blazing. To clear an acre they waste the timber on half a 
dozen or a dozen. They plant their yams and sweet potatoes 
among the ashes and grow crops there till the soil is ex- 
hausted. Then they move on to another, which they treat 
with the same recklessness, leaving the first to go back to 
scrub. Since the Chinaman burnt his house to roast his pig, 
such waste was never seen. The male proprietors were 
lounging about smoking. Their wives, as it was market day, 
Avere tramping into Kingston with their baskets on their 
heads ; we met them literally in thousands, all merry and 
light-hearted, their little ones with little baskets trudging 
at their side. Of the lords of the creation we saw, perhaps, 
one to each hundred women, and he would be riding on mule 
or donkey, pipe in mouth and carrying nothing. He would 
be generally sulky too, while the ladies, young and old, had 
all a civil word for us and curtsied under their loads. De- 
cidedly if there is to be a black constitution I would give the 
votes only to the women. 

We reached Castleton at last. It was in a hot damp valley, 



240 The English in the West Indies. 

said to be a nest of yellow fever. The gardens slightly dis- 
appointed me ; my expectations had been too much raised by 
Trinidad. There were lovely flowers of course, and curious 
plants and trees. Every known palm is growing there. They 
try hard to grow roses, and they say that they succeed. They 
were not in flower, and I could not judge. Bat the familiar 
names were all there, and others which were not familiar, 
the newest importations called after the great ladies of the 
day. I saw one labelled Mabel Morrison. To find the 
daughter of an ancient college friend and contemporary giv- 
ing a name to a plant in the New World makes one feel 
dreadfully old ; but I expected to find, and I did not find, 
some useful practical horticulture going on. They ought, for 
instance, to have been trying experiments with orange trees. 
The orange in Jamaica is left to nature. They plant the 
seeds, and leave the result to chance. They neither bud nor 
graft, and go upon the hypothesis that as the seed is, so will 
be the tree which comes of it. Yet even thus, so favourable 
is the soil and climate that the oranges of Jamaica are prized 
above all others which are sold in the American market. With 
skill and knowledge and good selection they might produce 
the finest in the world. ' There are dollars in that island, 
sir,' as an American gentleman said to me, ' if they will look 
for them in the right way.' Nothing of this kind was going 
on at Castleton ; so much the worse, but perhaps things will 
mend by-and-by. I was consoled partly by another specimen 
of the Amherstia nobilis. It was not so large as those which 
I had seen at Trinidad, but it was in splendid bloom, and 
certainly is the most gorgeous flowering tree which the world 
contains. 

Wild nature also was luxuriantly beautiful. We picnicked 
by the river, which here is a full rushing stream with pools 
that would have held a salmon, and did hold abundant mullet. 
We found a bower formed by a twisted vine, so thick that 



Castleton. 241 

neither sun nor rain could penetrate the roof. The floor was 
of shining shingle, and the air breathed cool from off the 
water. It was a spot which nymph or naiad may haunt here- 
after, when nymphs are born again in the new era. The 
creatures of imagination have fled away from modern enlight- 
enment. But we were a pleasant party of human beings, 
lying about under the shade upon the pebbles. "We had 
brought a blanket of ice with us, and the champagne was 
manufactured into cup by choicest West Indian skill. Fig- 
ures fall unconsciously at such moments into attitudes which 
would satisfy a painter, and the scenes remain upon the mem- 
ory like some fine finished work of art. We had done with 
the gardens, and I remember no more of them except that I 
saw a mongoose stalking a flock of turkeys. The young ones 
and their mother gathered together and showed fight. The 
old cock, after the manner of the male animal, seemed chiefly 
anxious for his own skin. On the way back we met the re- 
turning stream of women and children, loaded heavily as be- 
fore and with the same elastic step. In spite of all that is 
incorrect about them, the women are the material to work 
upon ; and if they saw that we were in earnest, they would 
lend their help to make their husbands bestir themselves. A 
Dutch gentleman once boasted to me of the wonderful pros- 
perity of Java, where everybody was well off and everybody 
was industrious. He so insisted upon the industry that I 
asked him how it was brought about. Were the people 
slaves? ' Oh,' he cried, as if shocked, 'God forbid that a 
Christian nation should be so wicked as to keep slaves ! ' 
'Do they never wish to be idle?' I asked. 'Never, never,' he 
said ; ' no, no : we do not permit anyone to be idle.' 

My stay with Colonel J was drawing to a close ; one 

great festivity was impending, which I wished to avoid ; but 
the gracious lady insisted that I must remain. There was to 
be a ball, and all the neighbourhood was invited. Pretty it 
10 



242 The English in the West Indies. 

was sure to be. Windows and doors, galleries and passages, 
would be all open. The gardens would be lighted up, and 
the guests could spread as they pleased. Brilliant it all was ; 
more brilliant than you would see in our larger colonies. A 
ball in Sydney or Melbourne is like a ball in the north of 
England or in New York. There are the young men in 
black coats, and there are brightly dressed young ladies for 
them to dance with. The chaperons sit along the walls ; the 
elderly gentlemen withdraw to the card room. Here all was 
different. The black coats in the ball at Jamaica were on the 
backs of old or middle-aged men, and, except Government 
officials, there was hardly a young man present in civilian 
dress. The rooms glittered with scarlet and white and blue 
and gold lace. The officers were there from the garrison and 
the fleet ; but of men of business, of professional men, mer- 
chants, planters, lawyers, &c, there were only those who had 
grown up to middle age in the island, whose fortunes, bad or 
good, were bound up with it. When these were gone, it 
seemed as if there would be no one to succeed them. The 
coveted heirs of great estates were no longer to be found for 
mothers to angle after. The trades and professions in Kings- 
ton had ceased to offer the prospect of an income to younger 
) brothers who had to make their own way. For 250 years 
1 generations of Englishmen had followed one upon another, 
I but we seemed to have come to the last. Of gentlemen un- 
connected with the public service, under thirty-five or forty, 
there were few to be seen ; they were seeking their fortunes 
/ elsewhere. The English interest in Jamaica is still a consid- 
, erable thing. The English flag flies over Government House, 
| and no one so far wishes to remove it. But the British popu- 
lation is scanty and refuses to grow. Ships and regiments 
come and go, and officers and State employes make what ap- 
pears to be a brilliant society. But it is in appearance only. 
The station is no longer a favourite one. They are gone;. 



Mandeville. 243 

those pleasant gentry whose country houses were the para- 
dise of middies sixty years ago. All is changed, even to the 
officers themselves. The drawling ensign of our boyhood, 
brave as a lion in the field, and in the mess room or the 
drawing room an idiot, appears also to be dead as the dodo. 
Those that one meets now are intelligent and superior men — 
no trace of the frivolous sort left. Is it the effect of the aboli- 
tion of purchase, and competitive examinations ? Is it that 
the times themselves are growing serious, and even the most 
empty-headed feel that this is no season for levity ? 

I had seen what Jamaican life was like in the upper spheres, 
and I had heard the opinions that were current in them ; but 
I wished to see other parts of the country. I wished to see 
a class of people who were farther from head quarters, and 
who might not all sing to the same note. I determined to 
start off on an independent cruise of my own. In the centre 
of the island, two thousand feet above the sea, it was reported 
to me that I should find a delightful village called Mande- 
ville, after some Duke of Manchester who governed Jamaica 
a hundred years ago. The scenery was said to have a special 
charm of its own, the air to be exquisitely pure, the land to 
be well cultivated. Village manners were to be found there 
of the old-fashioned sort, and a lodging-house and landlady 
of unequalled merit. There was a railway for the first fifty 
miles. The line at starting crosses the mangrove swamps at 
the mouth of the Cobre river. You see the trees standing 
in the water on each side of the road. Rising slowly, it 
hardens into level grazing ground, stocked with cattle and 
studded with mangoes and cedars. You pass Spanish Town, 
of which only the roofs of the old State buildings are visible 
from the carriages. Sugar estates follow, some of which are 
still in cultivation, while ruined mills and fallen aqueducts 
show where others once had been. The scenery becomes 
more broken as you begin to ascend into the hills. River 



244: The English in the West Indies. 

beds, dry when I saw them, but powerful torrents in the 
rainy season, are crossed by picturesque bridges. You come 
to the forest, where the squatters were at their usual work, 
burning out their yam patches. Columns of white smoke 
were rising all about us, yet so abundant the timber and so 
rapid the work of restoration when the devastating swarm 
has passed, that in this direction they have as yet made no 
marked impression, and the forest stretches as far as eye can 
reach. The glens grew more narrow and the trees grander 
as the train proceeded. After two hours we arrived at the 
present terminus, an inland town with the singular name of 
Porus. No explanation is given of it in the local handbooks ; 
but I find a Porus among the companions of Columbus, and 
it is probably an interesting relic of the first Spanish occupa- 
tion. The railway had brought business. Mule carts were 
going about, and waggons ; omnibuses stood in the yards, 
and there were stores of various kinds. But it was all black. 
There was not a white face to be seen after we left the sta- 
tion. One of my companions in the train was a Cuban en- 
gineer, now employed upon the line ; a refugee, I conject- 
ured, belonging to the beaten party in the late rebellion, 
from the bitterness with which he spoke of the Spanish ad- 
ministration. 

Porus is many hundred feet above the sea, in a hollow 
where three valleys meet. Mandeville, to which I was bound, 
was ten miles farther on, the road ascending all, the way. A 
carriage was waiting for me, but too small for my luggage. 
A black boy offered to carry up a heavy bag for a shilling, a 
feat which he faithfully and expeditiously performed. After 
climbing a steep hill, we crime out upon a rich undulating 
plateau, long cleared and cultivated ; green fields with cows 
feeding on them ; j^retty houses standing in gardens ; a Wes- 
leyan station ; a Moravian station, with chapels and parson- 
ages. The red soil was mixed with crumbling lumps of white 



Mandeville. 245 

coral, a ready-made and inexhaustible supply of manure. 
Great silk-cotton trees towered up in lonely magnificence, the 
home of the dreaded Jumbi — woe to the wretch who strikes 
an axe into those sacred stems ! Almonds, cedars, mangoes, 
gum trees spread their shade over the road. Orange trees 
were everywhere ; sometimes in orchards, sometimes grow- 
ing at their own wild will in hedges and copse and thicket. 
Finally, at the outskirts of a perfectly English village, we 
brought up at the door of the lodging house kept by the justly 
celebrated Miss Roy. The house, or cottage, stood at the 
roadside, at the top of a steep flight of steps ; a rambling 
one-story building, from which rooms, creeper-covered, had 
been thrown out as they were wanted. There was the uni- 
versal green verandah into which they all opened ; and the 
windows looked out over a large common, used of old, and 
perhaps now, as a race-course ; on wooded slopes, with sunny 
mansions dropped here and there in openings among the 
woods ; farm buildings at intervals in the distance, surrounded 
by clumps of palms ; and beyond them ranges of mountains 
almost as blue as the sky against which they were faintly vis- 
ible. Miss Roy, the lady and mistress of the establishment, 
came out to meet me : middle-aged, with a touch of the black 
blood, but with a face in which one places instant and sure 
dependence, shrewd, quiet, sensible, and entirely good-hu- 
moured. A white-haired brother, somewhat infirm and older 
than she, glided behind her as her shadow. She attends to 
the business. His pride is in his garden, where he has gath- 
ered a collection of rare plants in admired disorder ; the night- 
blowing cereus hanging cai-elessly over a broken paling, and 
a palm, unique of its kind, waving behind it. At the back 
were orange trees and plantains and coffee bushes, with loug- 
tailed humming birds flitting about their nests among the 
branches. All kinds of delicacies, from fruit and preserves to 
coffee, Miss Roy grows for her visitors on her own soil, and 



240 The English in the West Indies. 

prepares from the first stage to the last with her own cun- 
ning hands. 

Having made acquaintance with the mistress, I strolled 
out to look about me. After walking up the road for a 
quarter of a mile, I found myself in an exact reproduction of 
a Warwickshire hamlet before the days of railways and brick 
chimneys. There were no elms to be sure — there were silk- 
cotton trees and mangoes where the elms should have been ; 
but there were the boys playing cricket, and a market house, 
and a modest inn, and a shop or two, and a blacksmith's forge 
with a shed where horses were standing waiting their turn to 
be shod. Across the green was the parish church, with its 
three aisles and low square tower, in which hung an old peal 
of bells. Parish stocks I did not observe, though, perhaps, I 
might have had I looked for them ; but there was a school- 
house and parsonage, and, withdrawn at a distance as of su- 
perior dignity, what had once perhaps been the squire's man- 
sion, when squire and such-like had been the natural growth 
of the country. It was as if a branch of the old tree had 
been carried over and planted there ages ago, and as if it had 
taken root and become an exact resemblance of the parent 
stock. The people had black faces ; but even they, too, had 
shaped their manners on the old English models. The men 
touched their hats respectfully (as they eminently did not in 
Kingston and its environs). The women smiled and curtsied, 
and the children looked shy when one spoke to them. The 
name of slavery is a horror to us ; but there must have been 
something human and kindly about it, too, when it left upon 
the character the marks of courtesy and good breeding. I wish 
I could say as much for the effect of modern ideas. The ne- 
groes in Mandeville were, perhaps, as happy in their old con- 
dition as they have been since their glorious emancipation, 
and some of them to this day speak regretfully of a time when 
children did not die of neglect ; when the sick and the aged 



American Guests. 247 

were taken care of, and the strong and healthy were, at least, 
as well looked after as their owner's cattle. 

Slavery could not last ; but neither can the condition last 
which has followed it. The equality between black and 
white is a forced equality and not a real one, and Nature iu 
the long run has her way, and readjusts in their proper rela- 
tions what theorists and philanthropists have disturbed. 

I was not Miss Roy's only guest. An American lady and 
gentleman were staying there ; he, I believe, for his health, 
as the climate of Mandeville is celebrated. Americans, what- 
ever may be their faults, are always unaffected ; and so are 
easy to get on with. "We dined together, and talked of the 
place and its inhabitants. They had been struck like myself 
with the manners of the peasants, which were something en- 
tirely new to them. The lady said, and without expressing 
the least disapproval, that she had fallen in with an old slave 
who told her that, thanks to God, he had seen good times. 
' He was bred in a good home, with a master and mistress 
belonging to him. What the master and mistress had the 
slaves had, and there was no difference ; and his master used 
to visit at King's House, and his men were all proud of him. 
Yes, glory be to God, he had seen good times.' 

In the evening we sat out in the verandah in the soft sweet 
air, the husband and I smoking our cigars, and the lady not 
minding it. They had come to Mandeville, as we go to Italy, 
to escape the New England winter. They had meant to stay 
but a few days ; they found it so charming that they had 
stayed for many weeks. We talked on till twilight became 
night, and then appeared a show of natural pyrotechnics 
which beat anything of the kind which I had ever seen or 
read of : fireflies as large as cockchafers flitting round ns 
among the leaves of the creepers, with two long antennae, at 
the point of each of which hangs out a blazing lanthorn. 
T'ic unimaginative colonists call them gig-lamps. Hud 



243 The English in the West Indies. 

Shakespeare ever beard of them, they would have played 
round Ferdinand and Miranda in Prospero's cave, and would 
have borne a fairer name. The light is bluish-green, like a 
glowworm's, but immeasurably brighter ; and we could trace 
them far away glancing like spirits over the meadows. 

I could not wonder that my new friends had been charmed 
with the place. The air was exquisitely pure ; the tempera- 
ture ten degrees below that of Kingston, never oppressively 
hot and never cold ; the forest scenery as beautiful as at Arden ; 
and Miss Roy's provision for us, rooms, beds, breakfasts, din- 
ners, absolutely without fault. If ever there was an inspired 
coffee maker, Miss Roy was that person. The glory of Man- 
deville is in its oranges. The worst orange I ate in Jamaica 
was better than the best I ever ate in Europe, and the best 
oranges of Jamaica are the oranges of Mandeville. New 
York has found out their merits. One gentleman alone sent 
twenty thousand boxes to New York last year, clearing a dol- 
lar on each box ; and this, as 1 said just now, when Nature 
is left to produce what she pleases, and art has not begun to 
help her. Fortunes larger than were ever made by sugar 
wait for any man, and the blessings of the world along with 
it, who will set himself to_ work at orange growing with 
skill and science in a place where heat will not wither 
the trees, nor frosts, as in Florida, bite off the blossoms. 
Yellow fever was never heard of there, nor any dangerous 
epidemic, nor snake nor other poisonous reptile. The 
droughts which parch the lowlands are tmknown, for an even 
rain falls all the year and the soil is always moist. I inquired 
with wonder why the unfortunate soldiers who were perched 
among the crags at Newcastle were not at Mandeville instead. 
I was told that water was the difficulty ; that there was no 
river or running stream there, and that it had to be drawn 
from wells or collected into cisterns. One must applaud the 
caution which the authorities have at last displayed ; but 



Mandeville. 240 

cattle thrive at Mandeville, and sheep, and black men and 
women in luxuriant abundance. One would like to know 
that the general who sold the Newcastle estate to the Govern- 
ment was not the same person who was allowed to report as 
to the capabilities of a spot which, to the common observer, 
would seem as perfectly adapted for the purpose as the other 
is detestable. 

A few English families were scattered about the neigh- 
bourhood, among whom I made a passing acquaintance. 
They had a lawn-tennis club in the village, which met once 
a week ; they drove in with their pony carriages ; a lady made 
tea under the trees ; they had amusements and pleasant so- 
ciety which cost nothing. They were not rich ; but they 
were courteous, simple, frank, and cordial. 

Mandeville is the centre of a disti'ict -which all resembles 
it in character and extends for many miles. It is famous for 
its cattle as well as for its fruit, and has excellent grazing 

grounds. Mr. , an officer of police, took me round with 

him one morning. It was the old story. Though there were 
still a few white proprietors left, they were growing fewer, 
and the blacks were multiplying upon them. The smoke of 
their clearances showed where they were at work. Many of 
them are becoming well-to-do. We met them on the roads 
with their carts and mules ; the young ones armed, too, in 
some instances with good double-barrelled muzzle-loaders. 
There is no game to shoot, but to have a gun raises them in 
their own estimation, and they like to be prepared for con- 
tingencies. Mr. had a troublesome place of it. The 

negro peasantry were good-humoured, he said, but not uni- 
versally honest. They stole cattle, and would not give evi- 
dence against each other. If brought into court, they held 
a pebble in their mouths, being under the impression that 
when they were so provided perjury did not count. Their 
education was only skin-deep, and the schools which the 



250 The English in the West Indies. 

Government provided had not touched their characters at 
all. Mr. 's duties brought him in contact with the un- 
favourable specimens. I received a far pleasanter impression 
from a Moravian minister, who called on me with a friend 
who had lately taken a farm. I was particularly glad to see 
tins gentleman, for of the Moravians everyone had spoken 
well to me. He was not the least enthusiastic about his poor 
black sheep, but he said that, if they were not better than 
the average English labourers, he did not think them worse. 
They were called idle. They would work well enough if they 
had fair wages, and if the wages were paid regularly; but 
what could be expected when women servants had but three 
shillings a week and ' found themselves,' when the men had 
but a shilling a day and the pay was kept in arrear, in order 
that, if they came late to work, or if they came irregularly, it 
might be kept back or cut down to what the employer chose 
to give ? Under such conditions any man of any colour 
would prefer to work for himself if he had a garden, or 
would be idle if he had none. ' Living ' costs nest to noth- 
ing either to them or their families. But the minister said, 
and his friend confirmed it by his own experience, that 
these same fellows would work regularly and faithfully for 
any master whom they personally knew and could rely upon, 
and no Englishman coming to settle there need be afraid of 
failing for want of labour, if he had sense and energy, and 
did not prefer to lie down and groan. The blacks, my friends 
said, were kindly-hearted, respectful, and well-disposed, but 
they were children ; easily excited, easily tempted, easily mis- 
led, and totally unfit for self-government. If we wished to 
ruin them altogether, we should persevere in the course to 
which, they were sorry to hear, we were so inclined. The 
real want in the island was of intelligent Englishmen to em- 
ploy and direct them, and Englishmen were going away so 
fast that they feared there would soon be none of them left, 



American Experiences. 251 

This was the opinion of two moderate and excellent men, 
whose natural and professional prejudices were all on the 
black man's side. 

It was confirmed both in its favourable and unfavourable 
aspects by another impartial authority. My first American 
acquaintances had gone, but their rooms were occupied by 
another of their countrymen, a specimen of a class of whom 
more will be heard in Jamaica if the fates are kind. The 
English in the island cast in their lot with sugar, and if 
sugar is depressed they lose heart. Americans keep their 
' eyes skinned,' as they call it, to look out for other openings. 
They have discovered, as I said, ' that there are dollars in 
Jamaica,' and one has come, and has set up a trade in plan- 
tains, in which he is making a fortune ; and this gentleman 
had perceived that there were ' dollars in the bamboo, and for 
bamboos there was no place in the world like the West In- 
dies. He came to Jamaica, brought machines to clear the 
fibre, tried to make ropes of it, to make canvas, paper, and I 
know not what. I think he told me that he had spent a 
quarter of a million dollars, instead of finding any, before he 
hit upon a paying use for it. The bamboo fibre has certain 
elastic incompressible properties in which it is without a 
rival. He forms it into ' packing ' for the boxes of the 
wheels of railway carriages, where it holds oil like a sponge, 
never hardens, and never wears out. He sends the packing 
over the world, and the demand grows as it is tried. He has 
set up a factory, thirty miles from Mandeville, in the valley 
of the Black River. He has a large body of the negroes 
working for him who are said to be so unmanageable. He, 
like Dr. Nicholls in Dominica, does not find them unmanage- 
able at all. They never leave him ; they work for him from 
year to year as regularly as if they were slaves. They have 
their small faults, but he does not magnify them into vices. 
They are attached to him with the old-fashioned affection 



252 The English in the West Indies. 

which good labourers always feel for employers whom they 
respect, and dismissal is dreaded as the severest of punish- 
ments. In the course of time he thought that they might be- 
come fit for political privileges. To confer such privileges 
on them at present would fling Jamaica back into absolute 
barbarism. 

I said I wished that more of his countrymen would come 
and settle in Jamaica as he had done and a few others 
already. American energy would be like new blood in the 
veins of the poor island. He answered that many would 
probably come if they could be satisfied that there would be 
no more political experimenting ; but they would not risk 
their capital if there was a chance of a black parliament. 
/ If we choose to make Jamaica into a Hayti, we need not 
look for Americans down that way. 

Let us hope that enthusiasm for constitutions will for once 
moderate its ardour. The black race has suffered enough at 
our hands. They have been sacrificed to slavery ; are they 
to be sacrificed again to a dream or a doctrine ? There has 
a new creed risen, while the old creed is failing. It has its 
priests and its prophets, its formulas and its articles of 
belief. 

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary 
that he hold the Radical faith. 

And the Radical faith is this : all men are equal, and the 
voice of one is as the voice of another. 

And whereas one man is wise and another foolish, and one 
is upright and another crooked, yet in this suffrage none is 
greater or less than another. The vote is equal, the dignity 
co-eternal. 

Truth is one and right is one ; yet right is right because 
the majority so declare it, and justice is justice because the 
majority so declare it. 



The Radical Creed. 253 

And if the majority affirm one thing to-day, that is right ; 
and if the majority affirm the opposite to-morrow, that is 
right. 

Because the will of the majority is the ground of right and 
there is no other, &c, &c, &c. 

This is the Radical faith, which, except every man do keep 
whole and undefiled, he is a Tory and an enemy of the State, 
and without doubt shall perish everlastingly. 

Once the Radical was a Liberal and went for toleration 
and freedom of opinion. He has become a believer now. 
He is right and you are wrong, and if you do not agree with 
him you are a fool ; and you are wicked besides. Voltaire 
says that atheism and superstition are the two poles of intel- 
lectual disease. Superstition he thinks the worse of the two. 
The atheist is merely mistaken, and can be cured if you show 
him that he is wrong. The fanatic can never be cured. Yet 
each alike, if he prevails, will destroy human society. What 
would Voltaire have expected for poor mankind had he seen 
both the precious qualities combined in this new Symbolum 
Fidei t 

A creed is not a reasoned judgment based upon experi- 
ence and insight. It is a child of imagination and jxassion. 
Like an organised thing, it has its appointed period and then 
dies. You cannot argue it out of existence. It works for 
good ; it works for evil ; but work it will while the life is in 
it. Faith, we are told, is not contradictory to reason, but is 
above reason. Whether reason or faith sees truer, events 
will prove. 

One more observation this American gentleman made to 
me. He was speaking of the want of spirit and of the de- 
spondency of the West Indian whites. ' I never knew, sir,' 
he said, ' any good come of desponding men. If you intend 
to strike a mark, you had better believe that you can strike 



254 The English in the West Indies. 

it. No one ever hit anything if he thought that he was most 
likely to miss it. You must take a cheerful view of things, 
or you will have no success in this world.' 

'Tyne heart tyne a',' the Scotch proverb says. The 
Anglo-West Indians are tyning heart, and that is the worst 
feature about them. They can get no help except in them- 
selves, and they can help themselves after all if we allow 
them fair play. The Americans will not touch them politi- 
cally, but they will trade with them ; they will bring their 
capital and their skill and knowledge among them, and make 
the islands richer and more prosperous than ever they were 
I — on one condition : they will risk nothing in such enter- 
i prises as long as the shadow hangs over them of a possible 
j government by a black majority. Let it suffice to have 
l created one Ireland without deliberately manufacturing a 
second. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Jamaican hospitality — Cherry Garden — George William Gordon — The 
Gordon riots — Governor Eyre — A dispute and its consequences — 
Jamaican country-house society — Modern speculation — A Spanish 
fable — Port Royal — The commodore — Naval theatricals — The mod- 
ern sailor. 

The surviving representatives of the Jamaican gentry are as 
hospitable as their fathers and grandfathers used to be. An 
English visitor who wishes to see the island is not allowed to 
take his chance at hotels — where, indeed, his chance would be 
a bad one. A single acquaintance is enough to start with. 
He is sent on with letters of introduction from one house to 
another 1 , and is assured of a favourable reception. I was 
treated as kindly as any stranger would be, and that was as 
kindly as possible. But friends do not ask us to stay with 
them that their portraits may be drawn in the traveller's jour- 
nals ; and I mention no one who was thus good to me, un- 
less some general interest attaches either to himself or his 
residence. Such interest does, however, attach to a spot 
where, after leaving Mandeville, I passed a few days. The 
present owner of it was the chief manager of the Kingston 
branch of the Colonial Bank : a clever accomplished man of 
business, who understood the financial condition of the West 
Indies better perhaps than any other man living. He was a 
botanist besides ; he had a fine collection of curious plants 
which were famous in the island ; and was otherwise a gentle- 
man of the highest standing and reputation. His lady was 
one of the old island aristocracy — high-bred, cultivated, an 



256 The English in the West Indies. 

accomplished artist ; a person who would have shone any 
where and in any circle, and was, therefore, contented to be 
herself and indifferent whether she shone or not. A visit in 
such a family was likely to be instructive, and was sure to be 
agreeable ; and on these grounds alone I should have accepted 
gratefully the opportunity of knowing them better which they 
kindly made for me by an invitation to stay with them. But 
their place, which was called Cherry Garden, and which I had 
seen from the grounds at Government House, had a further 
importance of its own in having been the house of the un- 
fortunate George William Gordon. 

The disturbances with which Mr. Gordon was connected, 
and for his share in which he was executed, are so recent and 
so notorious that I need give no detailed account of them, 
though, of course, I looked into the history again and listened 
to all that I could hear about it. Though I had taken no part 
in Mr. Eyre's defence, I was one of those who thought from 
the first that Mr. Eyre had been unworthily sacrificed to pub- 
lic clamour. Had the agitation in Jamaica spread, and taken 
the form which it easily might have taken, he would have 
been blamed as keenly by one half of the world if he had 
done nothing to check it as he was blamed, in fact, by the 
other for too much energy. Carlyle used to say that it was 
as if, when a ship had been on fire, and the captain by skill 
and promptitude had put the fire out, his owner were to say 
to him, ' Sir, you poured too much water down the hold and 
damaged the cargo.' The captain would answer, ' Yes, sir, 
but I have saved your ship.' This was the view which I car- 
ried with me to Jamaica, and I have brought it back with me 
the same in essentials, though qualified by clearer perceptions 
of the real nature of the situation. 

Something of a very similar kind had happened in Natal 
just before I visited that colony in 1874. I had seen the 
whites there hardly recovering from a panic in which a com- 



George William Gordon. 257 

mon police case had been magnified by fear into the begin- 
ning of an insurrection. Langalibalele, a Caffir chief within 
the British dominions, had been insubordinate. He had been 
sent for to Maritzberg, and had invented excuses for disobedi- 
ence to a lawful order. The whites believed at once that 
there was to be a general Caffir rebellion in which they would 
all be murdered. They resolved to be beforehand with it. 
They carried fire and sword through two considerable tribes. 
At first they thought that they had covered themselves with 
glory ; calmer reflection taught many of them that perhaps 
they had been too hasty, and that Langalibalele had never 
intended to rebel at all. The Jamaican disturbance was of a 
similar kind. Mr. Gordon had given less provocation than 
the Caffir chief, but the circumstances were analogous, and 
the actual danger was probably greater. Jamaica had then 
constitutional though not what is called responsible, govern- 
ment. The executive power remained with the Crown. 
There had been differences of opinion between the governor 
and the Assembly. Gordon, a man of colour, was a promi- 
nent member of the opposition. He had called public meetings 
of the blacks in a distant part of the island, and was en- 
deavouring to bring the pressure of public opinion on the 
opposition side. Imprudent as such a step might have been 
among an ignorant and excitable population, where whites 
and blacks were so unequal in numbers, and where they knew 
so little of each other, Mr. Gordon was not going beyond 
what in constitutional theory he was legally entitled to do ; 
nor was his language on the platform, though violent and in- 
flammatory, any more so than what we listen to patiently at 
home. Under a popular constitution the people are sov- 
ereign ; the members of the assemblies are popular dele- 
gates ; and when there is a division of opinion any man 
has a right to call the constituencies to express their senti- 
ments. If stones were thrown at the police and seditious 

17 



258 The English in the West Indies. 

cries were raised, it was no more than might be reasonably 
expected. 

We at home can be calm on such occasions because we 
know that there is no real danger, and that the law is strong 
enough to assert itself. In Jamaica a few thousand white 
people were living in the middle of negroes forty times their 
number — once their slaves, now raised to be their political 
equals— each regarding the other on the least provocation 
with resentment and suspicion. In England the massacre in 
Hayti is a half-forgotten story. Not one person in a thousand 
of those who clamoured for the prosecution of Governor Eyre 
had probably ever heard of it. In Jamaica it is ever present 
in the minds of the Europeans as a frightful evidence of what 
the negroes are capable when roused to frenzy. The French 
planters had done nothing particularly cruel to deserve their 
animosity, and were as well regarded by their slaves as ever 
we had been in the English islands. Yet in a fever of politi- 
cal excitement, and as a reward for the decree of the Paris 
Revolutionary Government, which declared them free, they 
allowed the liberty which was to have elevated them to the 
white man's level to turn them into devils ; and they mas- 
sacred the whole of the French inhabitants. It was inevi- 
table that when the volcano in Jamaica began to show symp- 
toms of similar activity the whites residing there should be 
unable to look on with the calmness which we, from thousands 
of miles away, unreasonably expected of them. They im- 
agined their houses in flames, and themselves and their fami- 
lies at the mercy of a furious mob. No personal relation 
between the two races has grown up to take the place of 
slavery. The white gentry have blacks for labourers, blacks 
for domestic servants, yet as a rule (though, of course, there 
are exceptions) they have no interest in each other, no esteem 
nor confidence : therefore any symptom of agitation is certain 
to produce a panic, and panic is always violent. 



Governor Eyre and Gordon. 259 

The blacks who attended Gordon's meetings came armed 
with guns and cutlasses ; a party of white volunteers went 
in consequence to watch them, and to keep order if they 
showed signs of meaning insurrection. Stones were thrown ; 
the Kiot Act was read, more stones followed, and then 
the volunteers fired, and several persons were killed. Of 
course there was fury. The black mob then actually did 
rise. They marched about that particular district destroy- 
ing plantations and burning houses. That they did so little, 
and that the flame did not spread, was a proof that there was 
no premeditation of rebellion, no prepared plan of action, no 
previous communication between the different parts of the 
island with a view to any common movement. There was no 
proof, and there was no reason to suppose, that Gordon had 
intended an armed outbreak. He would have been a fool if 
he had, when constitutional agitation and the weight of num- 
bers at his back would have secured him all that he wanted. 
When inflammable materials are brought together, and sparks 
are flying, you cannot equitably distribute the blame or the 
punishment. Eyre was responsible for the safety of the isl- 
and. He was not a Jamaican. The rule in the colonial ser- 
vice is that a governor remains in any colony only long enough 
to begin to understand it. He is then removed to another of 
which he knows nothing. He is therefore absolutely depend- 
ent in any difficulty upon local advice. When the riots began 
every white man in Jamaica was of one opinion, that unless 
the fire was stamped out promptly they would all be mur- 
dered. Being without experience himself, it was very diffi- 
cult for Mr. Eyre to disregard so complete a unanimity. I 
suppose that a perfectly calm and determined man would 
have seen in the unanimity itself the evidence of alarm and 
imagination. He ought perhaps to have relied entirely on 
the police and the regular troops, and to have called in the 
volunteers. But here again was a difficulty ; for the police 



280 The English in the West Indies. 

were black, and the West India regiments were black, and 
the Sepoy rebellion was fresh in everybody's memory. He 
had no time to deliberate. He had to act, and to act 
promptly; and if, relying on his own judgment, he had dis- 
regarded what everyone round him insisted upon, and if 
mischief had afterwards come of it, the censure which would 
have fallen upon him would have been as severe as it would 
have been deserved. He assumed that the English colonists 
were right and that a general rebellion had begun. They all 
armed. They formed into companies. The disturbed dis- 
trict was placed under martial law, and these extemporised 
regiments, too few in number to be merciful, saw safety only 
in striking terror into the poor wretches. It was in Jamaica 
as it was in Natal afterwards ; but we must allow for human 
nature and not be hasty to blame. If the rising at Morant 
Bay was but the boiling over of a pot from the oratory of an 
excited patriot, there was deplorable cruelty and violence. 
But, again, it was all too natural. Men do not bear easily to 
see their late servants on their way to become their political 
' masters, and they believe the worst of them because they are 
'afraid. A model governor would have rather restrained their 
ardour than encouraged it, but all that can be said against 
Mr. Eyre (so far as regarded the general suppression of the 
insurgents) is that he acted as nine hundred and ninety-nine 
men out of a thousand would have acted in his place, and 
more ought not to be expected of average colonial gov- 
ernors. 

His treatment of Gordon, the original cause of the disturb- 
ance, was more questionable. Gordon had returned to his 
own house, the house where I was going, within sight of 
Eyre's windows. It would have been fair, and perhaps right, 
to arrest him, and right also to bring him to trial, if he had 
committed any offence for which he could be legally punished. 
So strong was the feeling against him that, if every white man 



Eyre and Gordon. 261 

in Kingston had been empannelled, there would have been 
a unanimous verdict and they would not have looked too 
closely into niceties of legal construction. Unfortunately it 
was doubtful whether Gordon had done anything which 
could be construed into a capital crime. He had a right to 
call public meetings together. He had a right to appeal to 
political passions, and to indulge as freely as he pleased in the 
patriotic commonplaces of platforms, provided he did not 
himself advise or encourage a breach of the peace, and this it 
could not easily be proved that he had done. He was, how- 
ever, the leader of the opposition to the Government. The 
opposition had broken into a riot, and Gordon was guilty of 
having excited the feelings which led to it. The leader could 
not be allowed to escape unpunished while his followers were 
being shot and flogged. The Kingston district where he re- 
sided was under the ordinary law. Eyre sent him into the 
district which was under martial law, tried him by a military 
court and hanged him. 

The Cabinet at home at first thanked their representative 
for having saved the island. A clamour rose, and they sent 
out a commission to examine into what had happened. The 
commission reported unfavourably, and Eyre was dismissed 
and ruined. In Jamaica I never heard anyone express a 
doubt on the full propriety of his action. He carried away 
with him the affection and esteem of the whole of the English 
colonists, who believe that he saved them from destruction. 
In my own opinion the fault was not in Mr. Eyre, and was 
not in the unfortunate Gordon, but in those who had insisted 
on applying a constitutional form of government to a country 
where the population is so unfavourably divided. If the 
numbers of white and black were more nearly equal, the ob- 
jection would be less, for the natural superiority of the white 
would then assert itself without difficulty, and there would 
be no panics. Where the disproportion is so enormous as it 



262 The English in the West Indies. 

is in Jamaica, where intelligence and property are in a mis- 
erable minority, and a half-reclaimed race of savages, canni- 
bals not long ago, and capable, as the state of Hayti shows, 
of reverting to cannibalism again, are living beside them as 
their political equals, such panics arise from the nature of 
things, and will themselves cause the catastrophe from the 
dread of which they spring. Mutual fear and mistrust can 
lead to nothing in the end but violent collisions. The theory 
of constitutional government is that the majority shall rule 
the minority, and as long as the qualities, moral and mental, 
of the parties are not grossly dissimilar, such an arrangement 
forms a tolerable modus vivendi. Where in character, in 
mental force, in energy, in cultivation, there is no equality at 
all, but an inequality which has existed for thousands of 
years, and is as plain to-day as it was in the Egypt of the 
Pharaohs, to expect that the intelligent few will submit to 
the unintelligent many is to expect what has never been 
found and what never ought to be found. The whites can- 
not be trusted to rule the blacks, but for the blacks to rule 
the whites is a yet grosser anomaly. Were England out of 
the way, there would be a war of extermination between 
them. England prohibits it, and holds the balance in forced 
equality. England, therefore, so long as the West Indies are 
English, must herself rule, and rule impartially, and so acquit 
herself of her self-chosen responsibilities. Let the colonies 
which are occupied by our own race rule themselves as we 
rule ourselves. The English constituencies have no rights 
over the constituencies of Canada and Australia, for the 
Canadians and Australians are as well able to manage their 
own affairs as we are to manage ours. If they prefer even to 
elect governors of their own, let them do as they please. The 
link between us is community of blood and interest, and will 
iiot part over details of administration. Bat in these other 
colonies which are our own we must accept the facts as they 



Drive to Cherry Garden. 2 & 

are. Those who will not recognise realities are always bea fa 
in the end. 

The train from Porus brought us back to Kingston an 
hour before sunset. The evening was lovely, even for Ja- 
maica. The sea breeze had fallen. The land breeze had not 
risen, and the dust lay harmless on road and hedge. Cherry 
Garden, to which I was bound, was but seven miles distant 
by the direct road, so I calculated on a delightful drive which 
would bring me to my destination before dark. So I cal- 
culated ; but alas ! for human expectation. I engaged a 
' buggy ' at the station, with a decent-looking conductor, who 
assured me that he knew the way to Cherry Garden as well 
as to his own door. His horse looked starved and miserable. 
He insisted that there was not another in Kingston that was 
more than a match for it. We set out, and for the first two 
or three miles we went on well enough, conversing amicably 
upon things in general. But it so happened that it was again 
market day. The road was thronged as before with women 
plodding along with their baskets on their heads, a single 
male on a donkey to each detachment of them, carrying noth- 
ing, like an officer with a company of soldiers. Foolish in- 
dignation rose in me, and I asked my friend if he was not 
ashamed of seeing the poor creatures toiling so cruelly, while 
their lords and masters amused themselves. I appealed to 
his feelings as a man, as if it was likely that he had got any. 
The wretch only laughed. ' Ah, massa,' he said, with his 
tongue in his cheek, 'women do women's work, men do 
men's work — all right.' 'And what is men's work?' I asked. 
Instead of answering he went on, 'Look at they women, 
massa — how they laugh — how happy they be ! Nobody more 
happy than black woman, massa.' I would not let him 
off. I pricked into him, till he got excited too, and we ar- 
gued and contradicted each other, till at last the horse, find- 
ing he was not attended to, went his own way and that 



264: The English in the West Indies. 

was a wrong one. Between Kingston and our destination 
there is a deep sandy flat, overgrown with bush and pene- 
trated in all directions with labyrinthine lanes. Into this we 
had wandered in our quarrels, and neither of us knew where 
we were. The sand was loose ; our miserable beast was 
above his fetlocks in it, and was visibly dropping under his 
efforts to drag us along even at a walk. The sun went down. 
The tropic twilight is short. The evening star shone out in 
the west, and the crescent moon over our heads. My man 
said this and said that ; every word was a lie, for he had lost 
his way and would not allow it. We saw a light through 
some trees. I sent him to inquire. We were directed one 
way and another way, every way except the right one. We 
emerged at last upon a hard road of some kind. • The stars 
told me the general direction. We came to cottages Avhere 
the name of Cherry Garden was known, and we were told 
that it was two miles off ; but, alas ! again there were two 
roads to it ; a short and good one, and a long and bad 
one, and they sent us by the last. There was a steep hill to 
climb, for the house is 800 feet above the sea. The horse 
could hardly crawl, and my ' nigger ' went to work to flog 
him to let off his own ill-humour. I had to stop that by 
force, and at last, as it grew too dark to see the road 'under 
the trees, I got out and walked, leaving him to follow at a 
foot's pace. The night was lovely. I began to think that we 
should have to camp out after all, and that it would be no 
great hardship. 

It was like the gloaming of a June night in England, the 
daylight in the open spots not entirely gone, and mixing 
softly with the light of moon and planet and the flashing of 
the fireflies. I plodded on mile after mile, and Cherry Gar- 
den still reeeded to one mile farther. We came to a gate of 
some consequence. The outline of a large mansion was visi- 
ble with gardens round it. I concluded that we had arrived, 



Drive to Cherry Garden. 265 

and was feeling for the latch when the forms of a lady and 
gentleman appeared against the sky who were strolling in the 
grounds. They directed me still upwards, with the mile 
which never diminished still to be travelled. Like myself, 
our weary animal had gathered hopes from the sight of the 
gate. He had again to drag on as he could. His owner was 
subdued and silent, and obeyed whatever order I gave him. 
The trees now closed over us so thick that I could see noth- 
ing. Vainly I repented of my unnecessary philanthropy 
which had been the cause of the mischief ; what had I to do 
with black women, or white either for that matter ? I had to 
feel the way with my feet and a stick. I came to a place where 
the lane again divided. I tried the nearest turn. I found a 
trench across it three feet deep, which had been cut by a tor- 
rent. This was altogether beyond the capacity of our un- 
fortunate animal, so I took the other boldly, prepared if it 
proved wrong to bivouac till morning with my 'nigger,' and 
go on with my argument. Happily there was no need ; we 
came again on a gate which led into a field. There was a 
drive across it and wire fences. Finally lights began to glim- 
mer and dogs to bark : we were at the real Cherry Garden at 
last, and found the whole household alarmed for what had 
become of us. I could not punish my misleader by stinting 
his fare, for I knew that I had only myself to blame. He 
was an honest fellow after all. In the disturbance of my 
mind I left a rather valuable umbrella in his buggy. He dis- 
covered it after he had gone, and had grace enough to see 
that it was returned to me. 

My entertainers were much amused at the cause of the 
misadventure, perhaps unique of its kind ; to address homi- 
lies to the black people on the treatment of their wives not 
being the fashion in these parts. 

If there are no more Aaron Bangs in Jamaica, there are 
very charming people ; as I found when I turned this new 



266 The English in the West Indies. 

leaf in my West Indian experience. Mr. M could not 

have taken more pains with me if I had been his earliest 
friend. The chief luxury which he allowed himself in his 
simple life was a good supply of excellent horses. His busi- 
ness took him every day to Kingston, but he left me in charge 
of his family, and I had ' a good time,' as the Americans say. 
The house was large, with fine airy rooms, a draught so con- 
stantly blowing through it that the candles had to be cov- 
ered with bell glasses ; but the draughts in these countries 
are the very breath of life. It had been too dark when I ar- 
rived to see anything of the surroundings, and the next morn- 
ing I strolled out to see what the place was like. It lies just 
at the foot of the Blue Mountains, where the gradual slope 
from the sea begins to become steep. The plain of Kingston 
lay stretched before me, with its woods and cornfields and 
villas, the long straggling town, the ships at anchor in the 
harbour, the steamers passing in and out with their long 
trails of smoke, the sand-spit like a thin grey line lying upon 
the water, as the natural breakwater by which the harbour 
is formed, and beyond it the broad blue expanse of the Car- 
ibbean Sea. The foreground was like an English park, 
studded over with handsome forest trees and broken by the 
rains into picturesque ravines. Some acres were planted 
with oranges of the choicer sorts, as an experiment to show 
what Jamaica could do, but they were as yet young and had 
not come into bearing. Round the houses were gardens 
where the treasures of our hothouses were carelessly and 
lavishly scattered. Stephanotis trailed along the railing or 
climbed over the trellis. Oleanders white and pink waved 
over marble basins, and were sprinkled by the spray from 
spouting fountains. Crotons stood about in tubs, not small 
plants as we know them, but large shrubs ; great purple or 
parti-coloured bushes. They have a fancy for crotons in the 
West Indies ; I suppose as a change from the monotony of 



Cherry Garden. 267 

green. I cannot share it. A red leaf, except in autumn be- 
fore it falls, is a kind of monster, and I am glad that Nature 
has made so few of them. In the shade of the trees behind 
the house was a collection of orchids, the most perfect, I be- 
lieve, in the island. 

And here Gordon had lived. Here he had been arrested 
and carried away to his death ; his crime being that he had 
dreamt of regenerating the negro race by baptising them in 
the Jordan of English Radicalism. He would have brought 
about nothing but confusion, and have precipitated Jamaica 
prematurely into the black anarchy into which perhaps it is 
still destined to fall. But to hang him was an extreme meas- 
ure, and, in the present state of public opinion, a dangerous 
one. 

One does not associate the sons of darkness with keen per- 
ceptions of the beautiful. Yet no mortal ever selected a 
lovelier spot for a residence than did Gordon in choosing 
Cherry Garden. How often had his round dark eyes wan- 
dered over the scenes at which I was gazing, watched the 
early rays of the sun slanting upwards to the high peaks of the 
Blue Mountains, or the last as he sank in gold and crimson 
behind the hills at Mandeville ; watched the great steamers 
entering or leaving Port Royal, and at night the gleam of the 
lighthouse from among the palm trees on the spit. Poor fel- 
low ! one felt very sorry for him, and sorry for Mr. Eyre, too. 
The only good that came of it all was the surrender of the 
constitution and the return to Crown government, and this 
our wonderful statesmen are beginning to undo. 

No one understood better than Mr. M the troubles 

and dangers of the colony, but he was inclined, perhaps by 
temperament, perhaps by knowledge, to take a cheerful view 
of things. For the present at least he did not think that 
there was anything serious to be feared. The finances, of 
which he had the best means of judging, were in tolerable 



26S The English in the West Indies. 

condition. The debt was considerable, but more than half 
.of it was represented by a railway. If sugar was languish- 
ing, the fruit trade with the United States was growing with 
| the liveliest rapidity. Planters and merchants were not 
making fortunes, but business went on. The shares in the 
Colonial Bank were not at a high quotation, but the securi- 
ties were sound, the shareholders got good dividends, and 
eight and ten per cent, was the interest charged on loans. 
High interest might be a good sign or a bad one. Anyway 

Mr. M could not see that there was much to be afraid of 

in Jamaica. There had been bad times before, and they had 
survived notwithstanding. He was a man of business, and 
talked himself little about politics. As it had been, so it 
would be again. 

In his absence at his work I found friends in the neigh- 
bourhood who were all attention and politeness. One took 
me to see my acquaintances at the camp again. Another 
drove me about, showed me the house where Scott had lived, 
the author of ' Tom Cringle.' One round in particular left a 
distinct impression. It was through a forest which had once 
been a flourishing sugar estate. Deep among the trees were 
the ruins of an aqueduct which had brought water to the 
mill, now overgrown and crumbling. The time had not been 
long as we count time in the history of nations, but there 
had been enough for the arches to fall in, the stream to 
return to its native bed, the tropical vegetation to spring up 
in its wild luxuriance and bury in shade the ruins of a past 
civilisation. 

I fell in with interesting persons who talked metaphysics 
and theology with me, though one would not have expected 
it in Jamaica. In this strange age of ours the spiritual at- 
mosphere is more confused than at any period during the 
last eighteen hundred years. Men's hearts are failing them 
for fear, not knowing any longer where to rest. We look 



Modern Scepticism. 2G9 

this way and that way, and catch at one another like drown- 
ing men. Go where you will, you find the same phenomena. 
Science grows, and observers are adding daily to our knowl- 
edge of the nature and structure of the material universe, 
but they tell us nothing, and can tell us nothing, of what we 
most want to know. They cannot tell us what our own nat- 
ure is. They cannot tell us what God is, or what duty is. 
We had a belief once, in which, as in a boat, we floated 
safely on the unknown ocean ; but the philosophers and 
critics have been boring holes in the timbers to examine 
the texture of the wood, and now it leaks at every one of 
them. We have to help ourselves in the best way that we 
can. Some strike out new ideas for themselves, others go 
back to the seven sages, and lay again for themselves the old 
eggs, which, after laborious incubation, will be addled as 
they were addled before. To my metaphysical friends in 
Jamaica the ' Light of Asia ' had been shining amidst German 
dreams, and the moonlight of the Vedas had been illuminat- 
ing the pessimism of Schopenhauer. So it is all round. 
Mr. goes to Mount Carmel to listen for communica- 
tions from Elijah ; fashionable countesses to the shrine of 
Our Lady at Lourdes. 'Are you a Buddhist?' lisps the 
young lady in Mayfair to the partner with whom she is sit- 
ting out at a ball. ' It is so nice,' said a gentleman to me 
who has been since promoted to high office in an unfortunate 
colony, ' it is so nice to talk of such things to pretty girls, and 
it always ends in one way, you know.' Conversations on 
theology, at least between persons of opposite sex, ought to 
be interdicted by law for everyone under forty. But there 
are questions on which old people may be permitted to ask 
one another what they think, if it only be for mutual comfort 
in the general vacancy. We are born alone, we pass alone 
into the great darkness. When the curtain falls is the play 
over? or is a new act to commence? Are we to start °£'ain 



270 The English in the West Indies. 

in a new sphere, carrying with us what we have gained in 
the discipline of our earthly trials ? Are we to become again 
as we were before we came into this world, when eternity had 
not yet splintered into time, or the universal being dissolved 
into individual existences ? For myself I have long ceased 
to speculate on these subjects, being convinced that they 
have no bottom which can be reasoned out by the intellect. 
We are in a world where much can be learnt which affects 
our own and others' earthly welfare, and we had better leave 
the rest alone. Yet one listens and cannot choose but 
sympathise when anxious souls open out to you what is going 
on within them, A Spanish legend, showing with whom 
these inquiries began and with what result, is not without its 
value. 

Jupiter, having made the world, proceeded to make animals 
to live in it. The ass was the earliest created. He looked 
about him. He looked at himself; and, as the habit of 
asses is, he asked himself what it all meant ; what it was to 
be an ass, where did he come from, and what he was for ? 
Not being able to discover, he applied to his maker. Jupiter 
told him that he was made to be the slave of another animal 
to be called Man. He was to carry men on his back, drag 
loads for them, and be their drudge. He was to live on 
thistles and straw, and to be beaten continually with sticks 
and ropes'-ends. The ass complained. He said that he had 
done nothing to deserve so hard a fate. He had not asked 
to be born, and he would rather not have been born. He in- 
quired how long this life, or whatever it was, had to con- 
tinue. Jupiter said it had to last thirty years. The poor ass 
was in consternation. If Jupiter w r ould reduce the thirty to 
ten he undertook to be patient, to be a good servant, and 
to do his work patiently. Jupiter reflected and consented, 
and the ass retired grateful and happy. 

The dog, who had been born meanwhile, heard what had 



A Spanish Fable. 271 

passed. He, too, went to Jupiter with the same question. 
He learnt that he also was a slave to men. In the day he 
was to catch their game for them, but was not to eat it him- 
self. At night he was to be chained by a ring and to lie 
awake to guard their houses. His food was to be boues and 
refuse. Like the ass he was to have had thirty years of it, 
but on petition it was similarly exchanged for ten. 

The monkey came next. His function, he was told, was 
to mimic humanity, to be led about by a string, and grimace 
and dance for men's amusement. He also remonstrated at 
the length of time, and obtained the same favour. 

Last came the man himself. Conscious of boundless de- 
sires and, as he imagined, of boundless capabilities, he did 
not inquire what he was, or what he was to do. Those ques- 
tions had been already answered by his vanity. He did not 
come to ask for anything, but to thank Jupiter for having 
created so glorious a being and to ascertain for how many 
ages he might expect to endure. The god replied that thirty 
years was the term allotted to all personal existences. 

' Only thirty years ! ' he exclaimed. ' Only thirty years for 
such capacities as mine. Thirty years will be gone like a 
dream. Extend them ! oh, extend them, gracious Jupiter, 
that I may have leisure to use the intellect which thou hast 
given me, search into the secrets of nature, do great and 
glorious actions, and serve and praise thee, O my creator ! 
longer and more worthily.' 

The lip of the god curled lightly, and again he acquiesced. 
' I have some spare years to dispose of,' he said, ' of which 
others of my creatures have begged to be relieved. You shall 
have thirty years of your own. From thirty to fifty you shall 
have the ass's years, and labour and sweat for your support. 
From fifty to seventy you shall have the dog's years, and take 
care of the stuff, and snarl and growl at what younger men 
are doing. From seventy to ninety you shall have the mon- 



272 The English in the West Indies. 

key's years, and smirk and grin and make yourself ridiculoua 
After that you may depart.' 

I was going on to Cuba. The commodore had insisted on 
my spending my last days with him at Port Royal. He un- 
dertook to see me on board the steamer as it passed out of 
the harbour. I have already described his quarters. The 
naval station has no colonial character except the climate, 
and it is English entirely. The officers are the servants of 
the Admiralty, not of the colonial government. Their inter- 
ests are in their profession. They look to promotion in 
other parts of the world, and their functions are on the 
ocean and not on the land. The commodore is captain of 
the guardship ; but he has a commander under him and he 
resides on shore. Everyone employed in the dockyard, even 
down to his own household, is rated on the ship's books, con- 
sequently they are all men. There is not a woman servant 
about the place, save his lady's ladies'-maid. His daughters 
learn to take care of themselves, and are not brought up to 
find everything done for them. His boys are about the 
world in active service growing into useful and honourable 
manhood. 

Thus the whole life tastes of the element to which it be- 
longs, and is salt and healthy as the ocean itself. It was not 
without its entertainments. The officers of the garrison were 
to give a ball. The young ladies of Kingston are not afraid 
of the water, cross the harbour in the steam launches, dance 
till the small hours, return in the dark, drive their eight or 
ten miles home, and think nothing of it. In that climate, 
night is pleasanter to be abroad in than day. I could not 
stay to be present, but I was in the midst of the preparations, 
and one afternoon there was a prospect of a brilliant addition 
to the party. A yacht steamed inside the Point — long, nar- 
row, and swift as a torpedo boat. She carried American 



An American Yacht. 273 

colours, and we heard that she was the famous vessel of the 
yet more famous Mr. Vanderbilt, who was on board with his 
family. Here was an excitement ! The commodore was or- 
dered to call the instant that she was anchored. Invitations 
were prepared— all was eagerness. Alas! she did not anchor 
at all. She learnt from the pilot that, the smallpox being in 
Jamaica, if any of her people landed there she would be 
quarantined in the other islands, and to the disappointment 
of everyone, even of myself, who would gladly have seen the 
great millionaire, she turned about and went off again to sea. 
I was very happy at the commodore's — low spirits not 
being allowed in that wholesome element. Decks were 
washed every morning as if at sea, i. e. every floor was 
scrubbed and scoured. It was an eternal washing day, 
lines of linen flying in the brisk sea breeze. The commo- 
dore was always busy making work if none had been found 
for him. He took me one day to see the rock spring where 
Rodney watered his fleet, as the great admiral describes in 
one of his letters, and from which Port Royal now draws its 
supply. The spring itself bursts full and clear out of the 
limestone rock close to the shore, four or five miles from 
Kingston. There is a natural basin, slightly improved by 
art, from which the old conduit pipes carry the stream to 
the sea. The tug comes daily, fills its tanks, and returns. 
The commodore has tidied up the place, planted shrubs, 
and cleared away the bush ; but half the water at least, is 
still allowed to leak away, and turns the hollow below into 
an unwholesome swamp. It may be a necessity, but it is 
also a misfortune, that the officers at distant stations hold 
their appointments for so short a term. By the time that 
they have learnt what can or ought to be done, they are sent 
elsewhere, and their successor has to begin over again. The 
water in this spring, part of which is now worse than wasted 
and the rest carried laboriously in a vessel to Port Royal to 
18 



274 The English in the West Indies. 

be sold by measure to the people there, might be all con- 
ducted thither by pipes at small cost and trouble, were the 
commodore to remain a few years longer at Port Royal. 

He is his own boatman, and we had some fine sails about 
the lagoon — the breeze always fresh and the surface always 
smooth. The shallow bays swarm with small fish, and it was 
a pretty thing to watch the pelicans devouring them. They 
gather in flocks, sweep and wheel in the air, and when they 
plunge they strike the water with a violence which one would 
expect would break their wings. They do not dive, but 
seize their prey with their long, broad bills, and seem never 
to miss. 

Between the ships and the barracks, there are many single 
men in Port Royal, for whom amusement has to be found if 
they are to be kept from drink. A canteen is provided for 
them, with bowling alley, tennis court, beer in moderation, 
and a reading room, for such as like it, with reviews and 
magazines and newspapers. They can fish if they want 
sport, and there are sharks in plenty a cable's length from 
shore ; but the schoolmaster has been abroad, and tastes run 
in more refined directions. The blacks of Tobago acted 

' The Merchant of Venice ' before Governor S . The 

ships' companies of the gunboats at Port Royal gave a con- 
cert while I was there. The officers took no part, and left 
the men to manage it as they pleased. The commodore 
brought his party ; the garrison, the crews of the other 
ships, and stray visitors came, and the large room at the can- 
teen was completely full. The taste of the audience was 
curious. Dibdin was off the boards altogether, and favour 
was divided between the London popular comic song and 
the sentimental — no longer with any flavour of salt about it, 
but the sentimental spoony and sickly. ' She wore a wreath 
of roses' called out the highest enthusiasm. One of the 
performers recited a long poem of his own about Mary 



A Sailors 1 Concert. 275 

Stuart, 'the lovely and unfortunate.' Then followed the 
buffoonery ; and this was at least genuine rough and tumble 
if there was little wit in it. A lad capered about on a tour- 
nament horse which flung him every other moment. Various 
persons pretended to be drunk, and talked and staggered as 
drunken men do. Then there was a farce, how conceived 
and by what kind of author I was puzzled to make out. A 
connoisseur of art is looking for Greek antiques. He has 
heard that a statue has recently been discovered of 'Ajax 
quarrelling with his mother-in-law.' What Ajax was quarrel- 
ling about or who his mother-in-law might be does not appear. 
A couple of rogues, each unknown to the other, practise on 
the connoisseur's credulity. Each promises him the statue ; 
each dresses up a confederate on a pedestal with a modern 
soldier's helmet and a blanket to represent a Greek hero. 
The two figures are shown to him. One of them, I forget 
how, contrived to pass as Ajax ; the other had turned into 
Hercules doing something to the Stymphalides. At last they 
get tired of standing to be looked at, jump down, and to- 
gether knock over the connoisseur. Ajax then turns on 
Hercules, who, of course, is ready for a row. They fight till 
they are tired, and then make it up over a whisky bottle. 

So entirely new an aspect of the British tar took me by 
surprise, and I speculated whether the inventors and per- 
formers of this astonishing drama were an advance on the 
Ben Bunting type. I was, of course, inclined to say no, but 
my tendency is to dislike changes, and I allow for it. The 
commodore said that in certain respects there really was an 
advance. The seamen fell into few scrapes, and they did not 
get drunk so often. This was a hardy assertion of the com- 
modore, as a good many of them were drunk at that moment. 
I could see myself that they were better educated. If Ben 
Bunting had been asked who Ajax and Hercules were, he 
would have taken them to be three-deckers which were so 



276 The English in the West Indies. 

named, and his knowledge would have gone no farther. 
Whether they were better sailors and braver and truer men 
was another question. They understand their rights much 
better, if that does any good to them. The officers used to 
be treated with respect at all times and seasons. This is now 
qualified. When they are on duty, the men are as respectful 
as they used to be ; when they are off duty, the commodore 

himself is only old H . 

We returned to the dockyard in a boat under a full moon, 
the guardship gleaming white in the blue midnight and the 
phosphorescent water flashing under the oars. The ' Dee,' 
which was to take me to Havana, was off Port Royal on the 
following morning. The commodore put me on board in his 
gig, with the white ensign floating over the stern. I took 
leave of him with warm thanks for his own and his family's 
hospitable entertainment of me. The screw went round — we 
steamed away out of the harbour, and Jamaica and the kind 
friends whom I had found there faded out of sight. Jamaica 
was the last of the English West India Islands which I visited. 
I was to see it again, but I will here set down the impressions 
which had been left upon me by what I had seen there and 
seen in the Antilles. 



CHAPTER XVII 

Present state of Jamaica — Test of progress— Resources of the island — 
Political alternatives — Black supremacy and probable consequences 
— The West Indian problem. 

As I was stepping into the boat at Port Royal, a pamphlet 
was thrust into my hand, which I was entreated to read at 
my leisure. It was by some discontented white of the island 
(—no rare phenomenon, and the subject of it was the precipi- 
tate decline in the value of property there. The writer, un- 
like the planters, insisted that the people were taxed in pro- 
portion to their industry. There were taxes on mules, on 
carts, on donkeys, all bearing on the small black proprietors, 
whose ability to cultivate was thus checked, and who were 
thus deliberately encouraged in idleness. He might have 
added, although he did not, that while both in Jamaica and 
Trinidad everyone is clamouring against the beetroot bounty 
which artificially lowers the price of sugar, the local councils 
in these two islands try to counteract the effect and artifici- 
ally raise the price of sugar by an export duty on their own 
produce — a singular method of doing it which, I presume, 
admits of explanation. My pamphleteer was persuaded that 
all the world were fools, and that he and his friends were the 
only wise ones : again a not uncommon occurrence in pam- 
phleteers. He demanded the suppression of absenteeism ; he 
demanded free trade. In exchange for the customs duties, 
which were to be abolished, he demanded a land tax— the 
very mention of which, I had been told by others, drove the 
black proprietors whom he wished to benefit into madness. 



278 The English in the West Indies. 

He wanted Home Rule. He wanted fifty things besides 
which I have forgotten, but his grand want of all was a new 
currency. Mankind, he thought, bad been very mad at all 
periods of their history. The most significant illustration of 
their madness had been the selection of gold and silver as the 
medium of exchange. The true base of the currency was the 
land. The Government of Jamaica was to lend to every free- 
holder up to the mortgage value of his land in paper notes, 
at 5 per cent, interest, the current rate being at present 8 
per cent. The notes so issued, having the land as their se- 
curity, would be in no danger of depreciation, and they would 
flow over the sugar estates like an irrigating stream. On the 
produce of sugar the fate of the island depended. 

On the produce of sugar ? And why not on the produce 
of a fine race of men ? The prospects of Jamaica, the pros- 
pects of all countries, depend not on sugar or on any form or 
degree of material wealth, but on the characters of the men 
and women whom they are breeding and rearing. Where 
there are men and women of a noble nature, the rest will go 
well of itself ; where these are not, there will be no true 
prosperity though the sugar hogsheads be raised from thou- 
sands into millions. The colonies are interesting only as of- 
fering homes where English people can increase and multi- 
ply ; English of the old type with simple habits, who do not 
need imported luxuries. There is room even in the West 
Indies for hundreds of thousands of them if they can be con- 
tented to lead human lives, and do not go there to make for- 
tunes which they are to carry home with them. The time may 
not be far off when men will be sick of making fortunes, sick 
of being ground to pattern in the commonplace mill-wheel of 
modern society ; sick of a state of things which blights and 
kills simple and original feeling, which makes us think and 
speak and act under the tyranny of general opinion, which 
masquerades as liberty and means only submission to the 



Capabilities. 279 

newspapers. I can conceive some modern men may weary of 
all this, and retire from it like the old ascetics, not as they 
did into the wilderness, but behind their own walls and 
hedges, shutting out the world and its noises, to inquire 
whether after all they have really immortal souls, and if they 
have what ought to be done about them. The West India 
Islands, with their inimitable climate and soil and prickly 
pears ad libitum to make fences with, would be fine places for 
such recluses. Failing these ideal personages, there is work 
enough of the common sort to create wholesome prosperity. 
There are oranges to be grown, and pines and plantains, and 
coffee and cocoa, and rice and indigo and tobacco, not to 
speak of the dollars which my American Mend found in the 
bamboos, and of the further dollars which other Americans 
will find in the yet untested qualities of thousands of other 
productions. Here are opportunities for innocent industri- 
ous families, where children can be brought up to be manly 
and simple and true and brave as their fathers were brought 
up, as their fathers expressed it ' in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord,' while such neighbours as their dark broth- 
ers-in-law might have a chance of a rise in life, in the only 
sense in which a ' rise ' can be of real benefit to them. These 
are the objects which statesmen who have the care and con- 
duct of a nation's welfare ought to set before themselves, and 
unfortunately they are the last which are remembered in coun- 
tries which are popularly governed. There is a clamour for 
education in such countries, but education means to them 
only the sharpening of the faculties for the competitive race 
which is called progress. In democracies no one man is his 
brother's keeper. Each lives and struggles to make his own 
way and his own position. All that is insisted on is that 
there shall be a fair stage and that every lad shall learn the 
use of the weapons which will enable him to fight his own 
way. 'Aperrj, 'manliness,' the most essential of all acquisitions 



280 The English in the West Indies. 

and the hardest to cultivate, as Aristotle observed long ago, is 
assumed in democracies as a matter of course. Of aperi) a mod- 
erate quantity (677-00-ovow) would do, and in Aristotle's opinion 
this was the rock on which the Greek republics foundered. 
Their dperr] did not come as a matter of course, and they lost 
it, and the Macedonians and the Komans ate them up. 

From this point of view political problems, and the "West 
Indian among them, present unusual aspects. Looking to 
the West Indies only, we took possession of those islands 
when they were of supreme importance in our great wrestle 
with Spain and France. We were fighting then for the liber- 
ties of the human race. The Spaniards had destroyed the 
original Carib and Indian inhabitants. We induced thou- 
sands of our own fellow-countrymen to venture life and for- 
tune in the occupation of our then vital conquests. For two 
centuries we furnished them with black servants whom we 
purchased on the African coast and carried over and sold 
there, making our own profits out of the trade, and the colo- 
nists prospered themselves and poured wealth and strength 
into the empire of which they were then an integral part. A 
change passed over the spirit of the age. Liberty assumed a 
new dress. We found slavery to be a crime ; we released our 
bondmen ; we broke their chains as we proudly described it to 
ourselves ; we compensated the owners, so far as money could 
compensate, for the entire dislocation of a state of society 
which we had ourselves created ; and we trusted to the en- 
chantment of liberty to create a better in its place. We had 
delivered our own souls ; we had other colonies to take our 
emigrants. Other lands under our open trade would supply 
us with the commodities for which we had hitherto been de- 
pendent on the West Indies. They ceased to be of commer- 
cial, they ceased to be of political, moment to us, and we left 
them to their own resources. The modern English idea is 
that every one must take care of himself. Individuals or as?- 



Theory of Colonial Management. 281 

gregates of individuals have the world before them, to open 
the oyster or fail to open it according to their capabilities. 
The State is. not to help them ; the State is not to interfere 
with them unless for political or party reasons it happens to 
be convenient. As we treat ourselves we treat our colonies. 
Those who have gone thither have gone of their own free will, 
and must take the consequences of their own actions. We 
allow them no exceptional privileges which we do not claim 
for ourselves. They must stand, if they are to stand, by 
their own strength. If they cannot stand they must fall. 
This is our notion of education in 'manliness,' and for imme- 
diate purposes answers well enough. Individual enterprise, 
unendowed but unfettered, built the main buttresses of the 
British colonial empire. Australians and New Zealanders 
are English and Scotchmen who have settled at the antipodes 
wdiere there is more room for them than at home. They are 
the same people as we are, and they have the same privi- 
leges as we have. They are parts of one and the same organic 
body as branches from the original trunk. The branch does 
not part from the trunk, but it discharges its own vital func- 
tions by its own energy, and we no more desire to interfere 
than London desires to interfere with Manchester. 

So it stands with us where the colonists are of our race, 
with the same character and the same objects ; and, as I said, 
the system answers. Under no other relations could we con- 
tinue a united people. But it does not answer — it has failed 
wherever we have tried it — when the majority of the inhabi- 
tants of countries of which for one or other reason we have 
possessed ourselves, and of which we keep possession, are not 
united to us by any of these natural bonds, where they have 
been annexed by violence or otherwise been forced under 
our flag. It has failed conspicuously in Ireland. We know 
ihat it would fail in the East Indies if we were rash enough 
to venture the experiment. Self-government in connection 



282 The English in the West Indies. 

with the British Empire implies a desire or a willingness in 
those who are so left to themselves that the connection shall 
continue. We have been so sanguine as to believe that the 
privilege of being British subjects is itself sufficient to secure 
their allegiance ; that the liberties which we concede will not 
be used for purposes which we are unable to tolerate ; that, 
being left to govern themselves, they will govern in harmony 
with English interests and according to English principles. 
The privilege is not estimated so highly. They go their own 
way and not our way, and therefore we must look facts in the 
face as they are, and not as we wish them to be. If we ex- 
tend to Ireland the independence which only links us closer 
to Australia, Ireland will use it to break away from us. If 
we extend it to Bengal and Madras and Bombay, we shall 
fling them into anarchy and biing our empire to an end. We 
cannot for our safety's sake part with Ireland. We do not 
mean to part with our Asiatic dominions. The reality of the 
relation in both cases is the superior force of England, and 
we must rely upon it and need not try to conceal that we do, 
till by the excellence of our administration we have converted 
submission into respect and respect into willingness for union. 
This may be a long process and a difficult one. If we choose 
to maintain our empire, however, we must pay the price for 
it, and it is wiser, better, safer, in all cases to admit the 
truth and act upon it. Yet Englishmen so love liberty that 
they struggle against confessing what is disagreeable to 
them. Many of us would give Ireland, would give India 
Home Kule, and run the risk of what would happen, and 
only a probability, which reaches certainty, of the conse- 
quences to be expected to follow prevents us from unani- 
mously agreeing. About the West Indies we do not care 
very earnestly. Nothing seriously alarming can happen 
there. So much, therefore, of the general policy of leaving 
them to help themselves out of their difficulties we Lave 



The West Indian Problem. 283 

adopted completely. The corollary that they must govern 
themselves also on their own responsibilities we hesitate as 
yet to admit completely ; but we do not recognise that any 
responsibility for their failing condition rests on us ; and the 
inclination certainly, and perhaps the purpose, is to throw 
them entirely upon themselves at the earliest moment. Cuba 
sends representatives to the Cortes at Madrid, Martinique 
and Guadaloupe to the Assembly at Paris. In the English 
islands, being unwilling to govern without some semblance 
of a constitution, we try tentatively varieties of local boards 
and local councils, admitting the elective principle but not 
daring to trust it fully ; creating hybrid constitutions, so 
contrived as to provoke ill feeling where none would exist 
without them, and to make impossible any tolerable govern- 
ment which could actively benefit the people. We cannot 
intend that arrangements the effects of which are visible so 
plainly in the sinking fortunes of our own kindred there, are 
to continue for ever. "We suppose that we cannot go back in 
these cases. It is to be presumed, therefore, that we mean 
to go forward, and in doing so I venture to think myself that 
we shall be doing equal inj ustice both to our own race and to 
the blacks, and we shall bring the islands into a condition 
which will be a reproach and scandal to the empire of which 
they will remain a dishonoured part. The slave trade was'i 
an imperial monopoly, extorted by force, guaranteed by 
treaties, and our white West Indian interest was built up in 
connection with and in reliance upon it. We had a right to 
set the slaves free ; but the payment of the indemnity was 
no full acquittance of our obligations for the condition of a 
society which we had ourselves created. We have no more 
right to make the emancipated slave his master's master in 
virtue of his numbers than we have a right to lay under the 
heel of the Catholics of Ireland the Protestant minority whom 
we planted there to assist us in controlling them. 



284 The English in the West Indies. 

It may be said that we have no intention of doing anything 
of the kind, that no one at present dreams of giving a full 
colonial constitution to the West Indian Islands. They are al- 
lowed such freedom as they are capable of using ; they can 
be allowed more as they are better educated and more fit for 
it, &c, &c. 

One knows all that, and one knows what it is worth in the 
half-elected, half-nominated councils. Either the nominated 
members are introduced merely as a drag upon the wheel, 
and are instructed to yield in the end to the demands of the 
representative members, or they are themselves the repre- 
sentatives of the white minority. If the first, the majority 
rule already ; if the second, such constitutions are contrived 
ingeniously to create the largest amount of irritation, and to 
make impossible, as long as they last, any form of effective 
and useful government. Therefore they cannot last, and are 
not meant to last. A principle once conceded develops with 
the same certainty with which a seed grows when it is sown. 
In the English world, as it now stands, there is no middle al- 
ternative between self-government and government by the 
Crown, and the cause of our reluctance to undertake direct 
charge of the West Indies is because such undertaking carries 
responsibility along with it. If they are brought so close to 
us we shall be obliged to exert ourselves, and to rescue them 
from a condition which would be a reproach to us. 

The English of those islands are melting away. That is a 
fact to which it is idle to try to shut our eyes. Families who 
have been for generations on the soil are selling their estates 
everywhere and are going off. Lands once under high culti- 
vation are lapsing into jungle. Professional men of ability 
and ambition carry their talents to countries where they are 
more sure of reward. Every year the census renews its warn- 
ing. The rate may vary ; sometimes for a year or two 
there may seem to be a pause in the movement, but it begins 



The West Indian Problem. 285 

again and is always in the same direction. The white is rela- 
tively disappearing, the black is growing ; this is the fact with 
which we have to deal. 

We may say if we please, ' Be it so then ; we do not want 
those islands ; let the blacks have them, poor devils. They 
have had wrongs enough in this world ; let them take their 
turn and have a good time now.' This I imagine is the an- 
swer which will rise to the lips of most of us, yet it will be an 
answer which will not be for our honour, nor in the long run 
for our interest. Our stronger colonies will scarcely attach 
more value to their connection with us if they hear us declare 
impatiently that because part of our possessions have ceased to 
be of money value to us, we will not or we cannot take the trou- 
ble to provide them with a decent government, and therefore 
cast them off. Nor in the long run will it benefit the blacks 
either. The islands will not be allowed to run wild again, 
and if we leave them some one else will take them who will 
be less tender of his coloured brother's sensibilities. We may 
think that it would not come to that. The islands will still 
be ours ; the English flag will still float over the forts ; the 
government, whatever it be, will be administered in the Queen's 
name. Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of the 
position of an English governor, with a black parliament and 
a black ministry, recommending by advice of his constitu- 
tional ministers some measure like the Haytian Land Law. 

No Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent 
to occupy such a position ; the blacks themselves would de- 
I spise him if he did ; and if the governor is to be one of their 
own race and colour, how long could such a connection en- 
dure? 

No one I presume would advise that the whites of the island 
should govern. The relations between the two populations 
are too embittered, and equality once established by law, the 
exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored. 



286 The English in the West Indies. 

While slavery continued the whites ruled effectively and eco- 
nomically ; the blacks are now free as they ; there are two 
classes in the community ; their interests are opposite as they 
are now understood, and one cannot be trusted with control 
over the other. As little can the present order of things con- 
tinue. The West India Islands, once the pride of our empire, 
the scene of our most brilliant achievements, are passing away 
out of our hands ; the remnant of our own countrymen, 
weary of an unavailing struggle, are more and more eager to 
withdraw from it, because they find no sympathy and no en- 
couragement from home, and are forbidden to accept help 
from America when help is offered them, while under their 
eyes their quondam slaves are multiplying, thriving, occupy- 
ing, growing strong, and every day more conscious of the 
changed order of things. One does not grudge the black man 
his prosperity, his freedom, his opportunities of advancing 
himself ; one would wish to see him as free and prosperous 
as the fates and his own exertions can make him, with more 
and more means of raising himself to the white man's level. 
But left to himself, and without the white man to lead him, 
he can never reach it, and if we are not to lose the islands al- 
together, or if they are not to remain with us to discredit our 
capacity to rule them, it is left to us only to take the same 
course which we have taken in the East Indies with such mag- 
nificent success, and to govern whites and blacks alike on the 
Indian system. The circumstances are precisely analogous. 
We have a population to deal with, the enormous majority of 
whom are of an inferior race. Inferior, I am obliged to call 
them, because as yet, and as a body, they have shown no 
capacity to rise above the condition of their ancestors ex- 
cept under European laws, European education, and Euro- 
pean authority, to keep them from making war on one an- 
other. They are docile, good-tempered, excellent and faith- 
ful servants when they are kindly treated ; but their notions 



The Indian Analogy. 287 

of right and wrong are scarcely even elementary ; their edu- 
cation, such as it may be, is but skin deep, and the old Afri- 
can superstitions lie undisturbed at the bottom of their souls. 
Give them independence, and in a few generations they will 
peel off such civilisation as they have learnt as easily and as 
willingly as their coats and trousers. 

Govern them as we govern India, with the same conscien- 
tious care, with the same sense of responsibility, with the 
same impartiality, the same disinterested attention to the 
well-being of our subjects in its highest and most honourable 
sense, and we shall give the world one more evidence that 
while Englishmen can cover the waste places of it with free 
communities of their own blood, they can exert an influence 
no less beneficent as the guides and rulers of those who need 
their assistance, and whom fate and circumstances have as- 
signed to their care. Our kindred far away will be more 
than ever proud to form part of a nation which has done 
more for freedom than any other nation ever did, yet is not a 
slave to formulas, and can adapt its actions to the demands 
of each community which belongs to it. The most timid 
among us may take courage, for it would cost us nothing 
save the sacrifice of a few official traditions, and an abstinence 
for the future from doubtful uses of colonial patronage. The 
blacks will be perfectly happy when they are satisfied that 
they have nothing to fear for their persons or their proper- 
ties. To the whites it would be the opening of a new era of 
hope. Should they be rash enough to murmur, they might 
then be justly left to the consequences of their own folly. 



CHAPTER XVHL 

Passage to Cuba — A Canadian commissioner — Havana — The Moro — The 
city and harbour — Cuban money — American visitors — The Cathedral 
—Tomb of Columbus — New friends: — The late rebellion — Slave 
emancipation — Spain and progress — A bull fight. 

I had gone to the West Indies to see our own colonies, but I 
could not leave those famous seas which were the scene of 
our ocean duels with the Spaniards without a visit to the last 
of the great possessions of Philip II. which remained to his 
successors. I ought not to say the last, for Puerto Rico is 
Spanish also, but this small island is insignificant and has no 
important memories connected with it. Puerto Rico I had 
no leisure to look at and did not care about, and to see Cuba 
as it ought to be seen required more time than I could afford ; 
but Havana was so interesting, both from its associations and 
its present condition, that I could not be within reach of it 
and pass it by. The body of Columbus lies there for one thing, 
unless a trick was played when the remains which were said 
to be his were removed from St. Domingo, and I wished to 
pay my orisons at his tomb. I wished also to see the race of 
men who have shared the New World with the Anglo-Saxons, 
and have given a language and a religion to half the Ameri- 
can continent, in the oldest and most celebrated of their 
Transatlantic cities. 

Cuba also had an immediate and present interest. Before 
the American civil war it was on the point of being absorbed 
into the United States. The Spanish Cubans had afterwards 
a civil war of their own, of which only confused accounts had 



The Spaniards in America. 2S9 

readied us at Lome. We knew that it had lasted ten years, 
but who had been the parties and what their objects had been 
was very much a mystery. No sooner was it over than, with- 
out reservation or compensation, the slaves had been emanci- 
pated. How a country was prospering which had undergone 
such a succession of shocks, and how the Spaniards were 
dealing with the trials which were bearing so hard on our 
own islands, were inquiries worth making. But beyond these 
it was the land of romance. Columbus and Las Casas, Cor- 
tez and Pizarro. are the demigods and heroes of the New 
World. Their names will be familiar to the end of time as 
the founders of a new era, and although the modern Span- 
iards sink to the level of the modern Greeks, their illustrious 
men will hold their place for ever in imagination and mem- 
ory. 

Our own Antilles had, as I have said, in their terror of 
smallpox, placed Jamaica under an interdict. The Spaniards 
at Cuba were more generous or more careless. Havana is on 
the north side of the island, facing towards Florida ; thus, 
in going to it from Port Royal, we had to round the western- 
most cape, and had four days of sea before us. We slid 
along the coast of Jamaica in smooth water, the air, while 
day lasted, intensely hot, but the breeze after nightfall blow- 
ing cool from off the mountains. We had a polite captain, 
polite officers, and agreeable fellow-passengers, two or three 
Cubans among them, swarthy, dark-eyed, thick-set men — 
Americanos ; Spaniards with a difference — with whom I culti- 
vated a kind of intimacy. In a cabin it was reported that 
there were again Spanish ladies on their way to the demonic 
gaieties at Dorien, but they did not show. 

Among the rest of the party was a Canadian gentleman, 

a Mr. , exceptionally well-informed and intelligent. Their 

American treaty having been disallowed, the West Indies had 
proposed to negotiate a similar one with the Canadian Do- 
10 



290 The English in the West Indies. 

minion. The authorities at Ottawa had sent Mr. M to see 

if anything could be done, and Mr. M was now on his 

way home, not in the best of humours with our poor relations. 
■ The Jamaicans did not know what they wanted,' he said. 
' They were without spirit to help themselves ; they cried out 
to others to help them, and if all they asked could not be 
granted they clamoured as if the whole world was combining 
to hurt them. There was not the least occasion for these pas- 
sionate appeals to the universe ; they could not at this moment 
perhaps " go ahead " as fast as some countries, but there was 
no necessity to be always going ahead. They had a fine coun- 
try, soil and climate all that could be desired, they had all 
that was required for a quiet and easy life, why could they 
not be contented and make the best of things ? ' Unfortunate 
Jamaicans ! The old mother at home acts like an unnatural 
parent, and will neither help them nor let their Cousin Jona- 
than help them. They turn for comfort to their big brother 
in the north, and the big brother being himself robust and 
healthy, gives them wholesome advice. 

Adventures do occasionally happen at sea even in this age 
of steam engines. Ships catch fire or run into each other, or 
go on rocks in fogs, or are caught in hurricanes, and Nature 
can still assume her old terrors if she pleases. Shelley de- 
scribes a wreck on the coast of Cornwall, and the treacherous 
waters of the ocean in the English Channel, now wild in fury, 
now smiling 

As on the morn 
When the exulting elements in scorn 
Satiated with destroyed destruction lay 
Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 
As panthers sleep. 

The wildest gale which ever blew on British shores was a 
mere summer breeze compared to a West Indian tornado. 
Behind all that beauty there lies the temper and caprice, 



Havana. 291 

not of a panther, but of a woman. But no tornados fell in 
our way, nor anything else worth mentioning, not even a 
buccaneer or a pirate. We saw the islands which these gen- 
try haunted, and the headlands made memorable by their 
desperate deeds, but they are gone, even to the remembrance 
of them. What they were and what they did lies buried 
away in book mausoleums like Egyptian mummies, all as 
clean forgotten as if they had been honest men, they and all 
the wild scenes which these green estuaries had witnessed. 

Havana figures much in English naval history. Drake 
tried to take it and failed ; Penn and Venables failed. We 
stormed the forts in 17G0, and held them and held the city 
till the Seven Years' War was over. I had read descriptions 
of the place, but they had given me no clear conception of 
what it would be like, certainly none at all of what it was 
like. Kingston is the best of our West Indian towns, and 
Kingston has not one fine building in it. Havana is a city of 
palaces, a city of streets and plazas, of colonnades, and towers 
and churches and monasteries. We English have built in 
those islands as if we were but passing visitors, wanting only 
tenements to be occupied for a time. The Spaniards built as 
they built in Castile ; built with the same material, the white 
limestone which they found in the New World as in the Old. 
The palaces of the nobles in Havana, the residence of the gov- 
ernor, the convents, the cathedral, are a reproduction of 
Burgos or Valladolid, as if by some Aladdin's lanrp a Castil- 
ian city had been taken up and set clown again unaltered on 
the shore of the Caribbean Sea. And they carried with them 
their laws, their habits, their institutions and their creed, 
their religious orders, their bishops, and their Inquisition. 
Even now in her day of eclipse, when her genius is clouded 
by the modern spirit against which she fought so long and 
so desperately , the sons of Spain still build as they used to 
build, and the modern squares and market places, the castles 



292 The English in the West Indies. 

and fortresses, which have risen in and round the ancient 
Havana, are constructed on the old massive model, and on 
the same lines. However it may be with us, and whatever 
the eventual fate of Cuba, the Spanish race has taken root 
there, and is visibly destined to remain. They have poured 
their own people into it. In Cuba alone there are ten times 
as many Spaniards as there are English and Scotch in all our 
West Indies together, and Havana is ten times the size of the 
largest of our West Indian cities. Refugees have flocked 
thither from the revolution in the Peninsula. The Canary 
Islands overflow into it. You know the people from Teneriffe 
by their stature ; they are the finest surviving specimens of 
the old conquering breed. The political future is dark ; the 
government is unimaginably corrupt — so corrupt that change 
is inevitable, though what change it would be idle to proph- 
esy. The Americans looked at the island which lay so tempt- 
ingly near them, but they were wise in their generation. 
They reflected that to introduce into an Anglo-Saxon repub- 
lic so insoluble an element as . a million Spanish Roman 
Catholics alien in blood and creed, with half a million blacks 
to swell the dusky flood which runs too full among them 
already, would be to invite an indigestion of serious conse- 
quence. A few years since the Cubans born were on the eve 
of achieving their independence like their brothers in Mexico 
and South America. Perhaps they will yet succeed. Span- 
ish, at any rate, they are to the bone and marrow, and Span- 
ish they will continue. The magnitude of Havana, and the 
fullness of life which was going on there, entirely surprised 
me. I had thought of Cuba as a decrepit state, bankrupt or 
finance exhausted by civil wars, and on the edge of social 
dissolution, and I found Havana at least a grand imposing 
city — a city which might compare for beauty with any in the 
world. The sanitary condition is as bad as negligence can 
make it — so bad that a Spanish gentleman told me that if it 



The Moro. 293 

were not for the natural purity of the air they would have 
been all dead like flies long ago. The tideless harbour is 
foul with the accumulations of three hundred years. The 
administration is more good-for-nothing than in Spain itself. 
If, in spite of this, Havana still sits like a queen upon the 
waters, there are some qualities to be found among her peo- 
ple which belonged to the countrymen and subjects of Fer- 
dinand the Catholic. 

The coast line from Cape Tiburon has none of the grand 
aspects of the Antilles or Jamaica. Instead of mountains 
and forests you see a series of undulating hills, cultivated 
with tolerable care, and sprinkled with farm-houses. All the 
more imposing, therefore, from the absence of marked nat- 
ural forms, are the walls and towers of the great Moro, the 
fortress which defends the entrance of the harbour. Ten 
miles off it was already a striking object. As we ran nearer 
it rose above us stern, proud, and defiant, upon a rock right 
above the water, with high frowning bastions, the lighthouse 
at an angle of it, and the Spanish banner floating proudly 
from a turret which overlooked the whole. The Moro as a 
fortification is, I am told, indefensible against modern artil- 
lery, presenting too much surface as a target ; but it is all 
the grander to look at. It is a fine specimen of the Vauban 
period, and is probably equal to any demands which will be 
made upon it. The harbour is something like Port Royal, a 
deep lagoon with a narrow entrance and a long natural break- 
water between the lagoon and the ocean ; but what at Port 
Royal is a sand spit eight miles long, is at Havana a rocky 
peninsula on which the city itself is built. The opening from 
the sea is half a mile wide. On the city side there are low 
semicircular batteries which sweep completely the approaches 
and the passage itself. The Moro rises opposite at the ex- 
treme point of the entrance, and next to it, farther in towards 
the harbour on the same side, on the crest and slopes of a 



294 The English in the West Indies. 

range of hills, stands the old Moro, the original castle which 
heat off Drake and Oliver's sea-generals, and which was capt- 
ured by the English in the last century. The lines were 
probably weaker than they are at present, and less adequately 
manned. A monument is erected there to the officers and 
men who fell in the defence. 

The city as we steamed by looked singularly beautiful, with 
its domes and steeples and marble palaces, and glimpses of 
long boulevards and trees and handsome mansions and cool 
arcades. Inside we found ourselves in a basin, perhaps of 
three miles diameter, full of shipping of all sorts and nation- 
alities. The water, which outside is pure as sapphire, has 
become filthy with the pollutions of a dozen generations. 
The tide, which even at the springs has but a rise and fall of 
a couple of feet, is totally ineffective to clear it, and as long 
as they have the Virgin Mary to pray to, the pious Spaniards 
will not drive their sewage into the ocean. The hot sun rays 
stream down into the thick black liquid. Horrible smells 
are let loose from it when it is set in motion by screw or 
paddle, and ships bring up at mooring buoys lest their an- 
chors should disturb the compost which lies at the bottom. 
Yet one forgot the disagreeables in the novelty and striking 
character of the scene. A hundred boats were plying to and 
fro among the various vessels, with their white sails and white 
awnings. Flags of all countries were blowing out at stern or 
from masthead ; among them, of course, the stars and stripes 
flying jauntily on some splendid schooner which stood there 
like a cock upon a dunghill that might be his own if he chose 
to crow for it. 

As soon as we had brought up we were boarded by the 
inevitable hotel touters, custom-house officers, porters, and 
boatmen. Interpreters offered their services in the confusion 
of languages. Gradually there emerged out of the general 
noise two facts of importance. First, that I ought to have 



Landing Embarrassments. 295 

had a passport, and if I had not brought one that I was likely 
to he fined at the discretion of Spanish officials. Secondly, 
that if I trusted to my own powers of self-defence, I should 
be the victim of indefinite other extortions. Passport I had 
none — such things are not required any longer in Spain, and 
it had not occurred to me that they might still be in demand 
in a Spanish colony. As to being cheated, no one could or 
would tell me what I was to pay for anything, for there were 
American dollars, Spanish dollars, Mexican dollars, and Cuban 
dollars, all different and with fractions of each. And there 
were multiples of dollars in gold, and single dollars in silver, 
and last and most important of all there was the Cuban paper 
dollar, which was 230 per cent, below the value of the Cuban 
gold dollar. And in this last the smaller transactions of com- 
mon life were carried on, the practical part of it to a stranger 
being that when you had to receive you received in paper, and 
when you had to pay you paid in specie. 

I escaped for the time the penalty which would have been 
inflicted on me about the passport. I had a letter of intro- 
duction to the Captain-General of the island, and the Cap tain- 
General — so the viceroy is called — was so formidable a per- 
son that the officials did not venture to meddle with me. 
For the rest I was told that as soon as I had chosen my 
hotel, the agent, who was on board, would see me through all 
obstructions, and would not allow me to be plundered by any- 
one but himself. To this I had to submit. I named an hotel 
at random ; a polite gentleman in a few moments had a boat 
alongside for rne ; I had stept into it when the fair damsels 
bound for Darien, who had been concealed all this time in 
their cabin, slipped down the ladder and took their places at 
my side, to the no small entertainment of the friends whom 
I had left on board and who were watching us from the deck. 

At the wharf I was able to shake off my companions, and I 
soon forgot the misadventure, for I found myself in Old Cas- 



296 The English in the West Indies. 

tile once more, amidst Spanish faces, Spanish voices, Spanish 
smells, and Spanish scenes. On the very wharf itself was a 
church grim and stern, and so massive that it would stand, 
barring earthquakes, for a thousand years. Church, indeed, 
it was no longer ; it had been turned into a custom-house. 
But this was because it had been desecrated when we were in 
Havana by having an English service performed in it. They 
had churches enough without it, and they preferred to leave 
this one with a mark upon it of the anger of the Almighty. 
Of churches, indeed, there was no lack ; churches thick as 
public-houses in a Welsh town. Church beyond church, 
palace beyond palace, the narrow streets where neighbours 
on either side might shake hands out of the upper stories, 
the deep colonnades, the private houses with the win- 
dows grated towards the street, with glimpses through the 
street door into the court and garden within, with its cloisters, 
its palm trees, and its fountains ; the massiveness of the 
stonework, the curious old-fashioned bookstalls, the dirt, the 
smell, the carriages, the swearing drivers, the black-robed 
priest gliding along the footway — it was Toledo or Valladolid 
again with the sign manual on it of Spain herself in friendly 
and familiar form. Every face that I saw was Spanish. In 
Kingston or Port of Spain you meet fifty blacks for one 
European ; all the manual work is done by them. In Havana 
the proportion is reversed, you hardly see a coloured man at 
all. Boatmen, porters, cab-drivers or cart-drivers, every one 
of whom are negroes in our islands, are there Spaniards, either 
Cuban born or emigrants from home. A few black beggars 
there were — permitted, as objects of charity to pious Catholics 
and as a sign of their inferiority of race. Of poverty among 
the whites, real poverty that could be felt, I saw no sign at 
all. 

After driving for about a mile we emerged out of the old 
town into a large square and thence into a wide Alameda or 



American Visitors. 297 

boulevard with double avenues of trees, statues, fountains, 
theatres, clubhouses, and all the various equipments of mod- 
ern luxuriousness and so-called civilised life. Beyond the 
Alameda was another still larger square, one side of which 
was a railway station and terminus. In a colonnade at right 
angles was the hotel to which I had been recommended ; 
spacious, handsome, in style half Parisian half Spanish, like 
the Fondas in the Puerto del Sol at Madrid. 

Spanish was the language generally spoken ; but there 
were interpreters and waiters more or less accomplished in 
other tongues, especially in English, of which they heard 
enough, for I found Havana to be the winter resort of our 
American cousins, who go, generally, to Cuba as we go to the 
Riviera, to escape the ice and winds of the eastern and middle 
States. This particular hotel was a favourite resort, and was 
full to overflowing with them. It was large, with an interior 
quadrangular garden, into which looked tiers of windows ; and 
wings had been thrown out with terraced roofs, suites of 
rooms opening out upon them ; each floor being provided 
with airy sitting rooms and music rooms. Here were to be 
heard at least a hundred American voices discussing the ex- 
periences and plans of their owners. The men lounged in 
the hall or at the bar, or sat smoking on the rows of leather 
chairs under the colonnade, or were under the hands of bar- 
bers or haircutters in an airy open saloon devoted to these 
uses. When I retreated upstairs to collect myself, a lady was 
making the corridors ring close by as she screamed at a piano 
in the middle of an admiring and criticising crowd. Dear as 
the Americans are to me, and welcome in most places as is 
the sound of those same sweet voices, one had not come to 
Havana for this. It was necessary to escape somewhere, and 
promptly, from the discord of noises which I hoped might be 
due to some momentary accident. The mail company's agent, 
Mr. R , lived in the hotel. He kindly found me out, in- 



298 The English in the West Indies. 

itiated me in the mysteries of Cuban paper money, and giv- 
ing me a tariff of the fares, found me a cab, and sent me out 
to look about me. 

My first object was the cathedral and the tomb of Colum- 
bus. In Catholic cities in Europe churches stand always 
open ; the passer-by can enter when he pleases, fall on his 
knees and say his silent prayers to his Master whom he sees 
on the altar. In Havana I discovered afterward that, except 
at special hours, and those as few as might be, the doors 
were kept locked and could only be opened by a golden key. 
It was carnival time, however ; there were functions going on 
of various kinds, and 1 found the cathedral happily accessible. 
It was a vast building, little ornamented, but the general 
forms severe and impressive, in the style of the time of 
Philip II., when Gothic art had gone out in Spain and there 
had come in the place of it the implacable sternness which 
expresses the very genius of the Inquisition. A broad flight 
of stone steps led up to the great door. The afternoon was 
extremely hot ; the curtains were thrown back to admit as 
much air as possible. There was some function proceeding 
of a peculiar kind. I know not what it was ; something cer- 
tainly in which the public had no interest, for there was not 
a stranger present but myself. But the great cathedral offi- 
cials were busy at work, and liked to be at their ease. On 
the wall as you entered a box invited contributions, as limosna 
por el Santo Padre. The service was I know not what. In 
the middle of the nave stood twelve large chairs arranged in 
a semicircle ; on these chairs sat twelve canons, like a row of 
mandarins, each with his little white patch like a silver dollar 
on the crown of his black head. Five or six minor dignita- 
ries, deacons, precentors, or something of that sort, were 
droning out monotonous recitations like the buzzing of so 
many humble bees in the warm summer air. The dean or 
provost sat in the central biggest chair of all. His face was 



The Tomb of Columbus. 299 

rosy, and lie wiped it from time to time with a red handker- 
chief ; his chin was double or perhaps treble ; he had evi- 
dently dined, and would or might have slept but for a pile 
of snuff on his chair arm, with continual refreshments from 
which he kept his faculties alive. I sat patiently till it was 
over, and the twelve holy men rose and went their way. I 
could then stroll about at leisure. The pictures were of the 
usual paltry kind. On the chancel arch stood the royal arms 
of Spain, as the lion and the unicorn used to stand in our 
parish churches till the High Church clergy mistook them 
for Erastian wild beasts. At the right side of the altar was 
the monument which I had come in search of ; a marble tab- 
let fixed against the wall, and on it a poorly executed figure 
in hmh relief, with a ruff about its neck and features which 
might be meant for anyone and for no one in particular. 
Somewhere near me there were lying I believed and could 
hope the mortal remains of the discoverer of the New World. 
An inscription said so. There was written : 

O Restos j Imagen del grande Colon 
Mil siglos durad guardados en la Urna 
Y en remenibranza de nuestra Nacion. 

The court poet, or whoever wrote the lines, was as poor an 
artist in verse as the sculptor in stone. The image of the 
grande Colon is certainly not ' guarded in the urn,' since you 
see it on the wall before your eyes. The urn, if urn there be, 
with the 'relics' in it, must be under the floor. Columbus 
and his brother Diego were originally buried to the right and 
left of the altar in the cathedral of St. Domingo. When St. 
Domingo was abandoned, a commission was appointed to re- 
move the body of Christophe to Havana. They did remove a 
body, but St. Domingo insists that it was Diego that was 
taken away, that Christophe remains where he was, and that 
if Spain wants him Spain must pay for him. I followed the 



300 The English in the West Indies. 

canons into the sacristy where they were unrobing. I did 
not venture to address either of themselves, hut I asked an 
acolyte if he could throw any light upon the matter. He 
assured me that there neither was nor could have been any 
mistake. They had the right body and were in no doubt 
about it. In more pious ages disputes of this sort were set- 
tled by an appeal to miracles. Eival pretenders for the pos- 
session of the same bones came, however, at last to be able to 
produce authentic proofs of miracles which had been worked 
at more than one of the pretended shrines ; so that it was 
concluded that saints' relics were like the loaves and fishes, 
capable of multiplication without losing their identity, and of 
having the property of being in several places at the same 
moment. The same thing has been alleged of the Holy Coat 
of Treves and of the wood of the true cross. Havana and St. 
Domingo may perhaps eventually find a similar solution of 
their disagreement over the resting place of Columbus. 

I walked back to my hotel up a narrow shady street like a 
long arcade. Here were the principal shops ; several libra- 
ries among them, into which I strayed to gossip and to look 
over the shelves. That so many persons could get a living 
by bookselling implied a reading population, but the book? 
themselves did not indicate any present literary products 
ness. They were chiefly old, and from the Old World, and 
belonged probably to persons who had been concerned in 
the late rebellion and whose property had been confiscated. 
They were absurdly cheap ; I bought a copy of Guzman de 
Alfarache for a few pence. 

I had brought letters of introduction to several distin- 
guished people in Havana ; to one especially, Don Gr , a 

member of a noble Peninsular family, once an officer in the 
Spanish navy, now chairman of a railway company and head 
of an important commercial house. His elder brother, the 
Marques de , called on me on the evening of the day of 



Cuban Friends. 301 

my arrival ; a distinguished-looking man of forty or there- 
abouts, with courteous high-bred manners, rapid, prompt, 
and incisive, with the air of a soldier, which in early life he 
had been. He had travelled, spoke various languages, and 

spoke to me in admirable English. Don G , who might 

be a year or two younger, came later and stayed an hour and 
a half with me. Let me acknowledge here, and in as warm 
language as I can express it, the obligations under which I 
stand to him, not for the personal attentions only which he 
showed me during my stay in Havana, but for giving me an 
opportunity of becoming acquainted with a real specimen of 
Plato's superior men, who were now and then, so Plato said, 
to be met with in foreign travel. It is to him that I owe any 
knowledge which I brought away with me of the present 
state of Cuba. He had seen much, thought much, read much. 
He was on a level with the latest phases of philosophical and 
spiritual speculation, could talk of Darwin and Spencer, of 
Schopenhauer, of Strauss, and of Kenan, aware of what they 
had done, aware of the inconvenient truths which they had 
forced into light, but aware also that they had left the most 
important questions pretty much where they found them. He 
had taken no part in the political troubles of the late years 
in Cuba, but he had observed everything. No one knew better 
the defects of the present system of government ; no one was 
less ready to rush into hasty schemes for violently mending it. 
The ten years' rebellion, of which I had heard so much 
and knew so little, he first made intelligible to me. Cuba 
had been governed as a province of Spain, and Spain, like 
other mother countries, had thought more of drawing a reve- 
nue out of it for herself than of the interests of the colony. 
Spanish officials had been avaricious, and Spanish fiscal 
policy oppressive and ruinous. The resources of the island 
in metals, in minerals, in agriculture were as yet hardly 
scratched, yet every attempt to develop them was paralysed 



302 The English in the West Indies. 

by fresh taxation. The rebellion had been an effort of the 
Cuban Spaniards, precisely analogous to the revolt of our 
own North American colonies, to shake off the authority of 
the court of Madrid and to make themselves independent. 
They had fought desperately and had for several years been 
masters of half the island. They had counted on help from 
the United States, and at one time they seemed likely to get 
it. But the Americans could not see their way to admitting 
Cuba into the "Union, and without such a prospect did not care 
to quarrel with Spain on their account. Finding that they 
were to be left to themselves, the insurgents came to terms 
and Spanish authority was re-established. Families had been 
divided, sons taking one side and fathers the other, as in our 
English Wars of the Roses, perhaps for the same reason, to 
save the family estates whichever side came out victorious. 
The blacks had been indifferent, the rebellion having no in- 
terest for them at all. They had remained by their masters, 
and they had been rewarded after the peace by complete 
emancipation. There was not a slave now in Cuba. No in- 
demnity had been granted to their owners, nor had any been 
asked for, and the business on the plantations had gone on 
without interruption. Those who had been slaves continued 
to work at the same locations, receiving wages instead of 
food and maintenance ; all were satisfied at the change, and 
this remarkable revolution had been carried out with an ease 
and completeness which found no parallel in any other slave- 
owning country. 

In spite of rebellion, in spite of the breaking up and re- 
construction of the social system, in spite of the indifferent 
administration of justice, in spite of taxation, and the inex- 
plicable appropriations of the revenue, Cuba was still moder- 
ately prosperous, and that it could flourish at all after trials 
so severe was the best evidence of the greatness of its natural 
wealth. The party of insurrection was dissolved, and would 



Political Trials. 303 

revive again only under the unlikely contingency of encour- 
agement from the United States. There was a party, how- 
ever, which desired for Cuba a constitution like the Canadian 
— Home Rule and the management of its own affairs — and as 
the black element was far outnumbered and under control, 
such a constitution would not be politically dangerous. 

If the Spanish Government does not mend its ways, con- 
cessions of this kind may eventually have to be made, though 
the improvement to be expected from it is doubtful. Offi- 
cial corruption is engrained in the character and habits of the 
Spanish people. Judges allowed their decisions to be 'influ- 
enced ' under Philip III. as much as to-day in the colonies of 
Queen Christina ; and when a fault is the habit of a people, 
it survives political reforms and any number of turnings of 
the kaleidoscope. 

The encouraging feature is the success of emancipation. 
There is no jealousy, no race animosity, no supercilious con- 
tempt of whites for ' niggers.' The Spaniards have inherited 
a tinge of colour themselves from their African ancestors, 
and thus they are all friends together. The liberated slave 
can acquire and own land if he wishes for it, but as a rule he 
prefers to work for wages. These happy conditions arise in 
part from the Spanish temperament, but chiefly from the nu- 
merical preponderance of the white element, which, as in the 
United States, is too secure to be uneasy. The black is not 
encouraged in insubordination by a sense that he could win 
in a contest of strength, and the aspect of things is far more 
promising for the future than in our own islands. The Span- 
iards, however inferior we may think them to ourselves, have 
filled their colonies with their own people and are reaping 
the reward of it. We have so contrived that such English as 
had settled in the West Indies on their own account are leav- 
ing them. 

Spain, four centuries ago, was the greatest of European na- 



304 The English in the West Indies. 

tions, the first in art, or second only to Italy, the first in 
arms, the first in the men whom she produced. She has 
been swept along in the current of time. She fought against 
the stream of tendency, and the stream proved too strong for 
her, great as she was. The modern spirit, which she would 
not have when it came in the shape of the Reformation, has 
flowed over her borders as revolution, not to her benefit, for 
she is unable to assimilate the new ideas. The old Spain of 
the Inquisition is gone ; the Spain of to-day is divided be- 
tween Liberalism and Catholic belief. She is sick in the proc- 
ess of the change, and neither she nor her colonies stand any 
longer in the front lines in the race of civilization ; yet the 
print of her foot is stamped on the New World in characters 
which will not be effaced, and may be found to be as endur- 
ing as our own. 

The colony is perhaps in advance of the mother country. 

The Catholic Church, Don G said, has little influence in 

Cuba ; ' she has had no rival,' he explained, ' and so has 
grown lazy.' I judged the same from my own observations. 
The churches on Sundays were thinly attended, and men 
smiled when I asked them about ' confession.' I inquired 
about famous preachers. I was told that there was no preach- 
ing in Havana, famous or otherwise. I might if I was lucky 
and chose to go there in the early morning, hear a sermon 
in the church of the Jesuits ; that was all. I went ; I heard 
my Jesuit, who was fluent, eloquent, and gesticulating, but 
he was pouring out his passionate rhetoric to about fifty 
women with scarcely a man amongst them. It was piteous 
to look at him. The Catholic Church, whether it be for want 
of rivals, or merely from force of time, has fallen from its 
high estate. It can burn no more heretics, for it has lost the 
art to raise conviction to sufficient intensity. The power to 
burn was the measure of the real belief which people had in 
the Church and its doctrines. The power has departed with 



The Church in Cuba. 305 

tlie waning of faith ; and religion in Havana, as in Madrid, 
is but ' use and wont ; ' not ' belief ' but opinion, and opinion 
which is half insincere. Nothing else can take its place. 
The day is too late for Protestantism, which has developed 
iuto wider forms, and in the matter of satisfied and complete 
religious conviction Protestants are hardly better off than 
Catholics. 

Don G had been much in Spain ; he was acquainted 

with many of the descendants of the old aristocracy, who 
linger there in faded grandeur. He had studied the history 
of his own country. He compared the Spain and England 
of the sixteenth century with the Spain and England of the 
present ; and, like most of us, he knew where the yoke galled 
his own neck. But economical and political prosperity is no 
exhaustive measure of human progress. The Pome of Tra- 
jan was immeasurably more splendid than the Pome of the 
Scipios ; yet the progress had been downwards nevertheless. 
If the object of our existence on this planet is the develop- 
ment of character, if the culminating point in any nation's 
history be that at which it produces its noblest and bravest 
men, facts do not tend to assure us that the triumphant 
march of the last hundred years is accomplishing much in 

that direction, I found myself arguing with Don G 

that if Charles V. and Philip II. were to come back to this 
world, and to see whither the movement had brought us of 
which they had worked so hard to suppress the beginning, 
they would still say that they had done right in trying to 
strangle it. The Reformation called itself a protest against 
lies, and the advocates of it imagined that when the lies, or 
what they called such, were cleared away, the pure metal of 
Christianity would remain unsullied. The great men who 
fought against the movement, Charles V. in his cabinet and 
Erasmus in his closet, had seen that it could not rest there ; 
that it was the cradle of a revolution in which the whole 
20 



306 The English in the West Indies. 

spiritual and political organisation of Europe would be flung 
into the crucible. Under that organisation human nature 
had ascended to altitudes of chivalry, of self-sacrifice, which 
it had never before reached. The sixteenth century was the 
blossoming time of the Old World, and no such men had ap- 
peared since as then came to the front, either in Spain or 
Italy, or Germany or France or England. The actual leaders 
of the Reformation had been bred in the system which they 
destroyed. Puritanism and Calvinism produced men of 
powerful character, but they Avere limited and incapable of 
continuance ; and now the liberty which was demanded had 
become what their instinct had told them from the first must 
be the final shape of it, a revolution which would tolerate no 
inequalities of culture or position, which insisted that no 
man was better than another, which was to exalt the low and 
bring down the high till all mankind should stand upon a 
common level — a level, not of baseness or badness, but a 
level of good-humoured, smart, vulgar and vulgarising 
mediocrity, with melodrama for tragedy, farce for comedy, 
sounding speech for statesmanlike wisdom ; and for a creed, 
when our fathers thought that we had been made a little 
lower than the angels, the more modest knowledge that we 
were only a little higher than the apes. This was the aspect 
in which the world of the nineteenth century would appear 
to Sir Thomas More or the Duka of Alva. From the Grand 
Captain to Sefior Castelar, from Lord Burghley to Mr. Glad- 
stone, from Leonardo da Vinci or Velasquez to Gustave 
Dore, from Cervantes and Shakespeare to ' Pickwick ' and the 
' Innocents at Home ; ' from the faith which built the cathe- 
drals to evolution and the survival of the fittest ; from the 
carving and architecture of the Middle Ages to the workman- 
ship of the modern contractor ; the change in the spiritual 
department of things had been the same along tbe whole 
line. The great Emperor, after seeing all that has been 



Thoughts on Progress. 307 

achieved, the railways, the steam engines, the telegraphs, the 
Yankee and his United States, which are the embodiment of 
the highest aspirations of the modern era, after attending 
a session of the British Association itself, and seeing the 
bishops holding out their hands to science which had done 
such great things for them, might fairly claim that it was a 
doubtful point whether the change had been really for the 
better. 

It may be answered, and answered truly, that the old thing 
was dead. The Catholic faith, where it was left standing and 
where it still stands, produces now nothing higher, nothing 
better than the Protestant. Human systems grow as trees 
grow. The seed shoots up, the trunk forms, the branches 
spread ; leaves and flowers and fruit come out year after year 
as if they were able to renew themselves for ever. But that 
which has a beginning has an end, that which has life must 
die when the vital force is exhausted. The faith of More, as 
well as the faith of Ken or Wilson, were elevating and enno- 
bling as long as they were sincerely believed, but the time 
came when they became clouded with uncertainty ; and con- 
fused, perplexed, and honestly anxious, humanity struggles 
on as well as it can, all things considered, respectably enough, 
in its chrysalis condition, the old wings gone, the new wings 
that are to be (if we are ever to have another set) as yet im- 
prisoned in their sheath. 

The same Sunday morning when I went in search of my 
sermon, the hotel was alive as bees at swarming time. There 
was to be a bull fight in honour of the carnival, and such a bull 
fight as had never been seen in Havana. Placards on the 
wall announced that a lady from Spain, Gloriana they called 
her, was to meet and slay a bull in single combat, and every- 
one must go and see the wonderful sight. I myself, having 
seen the real thing in Madrid many years ago, felt no more 
curiosity, and that a woman should be an actress in such a 



308 The English in the West Indies. 

scene did not revive it. To those who went the performance 
was a disappointment. The bull provided turned out to be a 
calf of tender years. The spectators insisted that they would 
have a beast full of strength and ferocity, and Gloriana when 
brought to the point declined the adventure. 

There was a prettier scene in the evening. In the cool 
after nightfall the beauty and fashion of Havana turns out to 
stroll in the illuminated Alameda. As it was now a high fes- 
tival the band was to play, and the crowd was as dense as on 
Exhibition nights at South Kensington. The music was 
equally good, and the women as graceful and well dressed. I 
sat for an hour or two listening under the statue of poor 
Queen Isabella. The image of her still stands where it was 
placed, though revolution has long shaken her from her throne. 
All is forgotten now except that she was once a Spanish sov- 
ereign, and time and distance have deodorised her memory. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

Hotels in Havana— Sights in the city — Cigar manufactories — West Ind- 
ian industries — The Captain-General — The Jesuit college — Father 
Vifiez — Ciubs in Havana — Spanish aristocracy — Sea lodging house. 

There was much to be seen in Havana, and much to think 
about. I regretted only that I had not been better advised 
in my choice of an hotel. The dining saloon rang with 
American voices in their shrillest tones. Every table was oc- 
cupied by groups of them, nor was there a sound in the room 
of any language but theirs. In the whole company I had 
not a single acquaintance. I have liked well almost every in- 
dividual American that I have fallen in with and come to 
know. They are frank, friendly, open, and absolutely unaf- 
fected, and, like my friend at Miss Roy's in Jamaica, they 
take cheerful views of life, which is the highest of all recom- 
mendations. The distinctness and sharpness of utterance is 
tolerable and even agreeable in conversation with a single per- 
son. "When a large number of them are together, all talking 
in a high tone, it tries the nerves and sets the teeth on edge. 
Nor could I escape from them in any part of the building. 
The gentlemen were talking politics in the hall, or lounging 
under the colonnade. One of them, an absolute stranger, 
who perhaps knew who I was, asked me abruptly for my 
opinion of Cardinal Newman. The ladies filled the sitting- 
rooms ; their pianos and their duets pierced the walls of my 
bedroom, and only ceased an hour after midnight. At five in 
the morning the engines began to scream at the adjoining 
railway station. The church bells woke at the same hour 



310 The English in the West Indies. 

with their superfluous summons to matins which no one at- 
tended. Sleep was next to an impossibility under these 
hard conditions, and I wanted more and not less of it when I 
had the duties upon me of sightseeing. Sleep or no sleep, 
however, I determined that I would see what I could as long 
as I could keep going. 

A few hundred yards off was one of the most famous of the 
Havana cigar manufactories. A courteous message from the 
manager, Senor Bances, had informed me that he would be 
happy to show me over it on any morning before the sun was 
above the roofs of the houses. I found the senor a handsome 
elderly gentleman, tall and lean, with Castilian dignity of man- 
ner, free and frank in all his communications, with no reserve, 
concealments, or insincerities. I told him that in my experi- 
ence cigars were not what they had been, that the last good 
one which I had smoked I had bought tw r enty years ago from 
a contrabandista at Madrid. I had come to Havana to see 
whether I could find another equally good at the fountain 
head. He said that he was not at all surprised. It was the 
same story as at Jamaica ; the consumption of cigars had in- 
creased with extreme rapidity, the area on which the finest 
tobacco had been grown was limited, and the expense of grow- 
ing it was very great. Only a small quantity of the best 
cigars was now made for the market. In general the plants 
were heavily manured, and the flavour suffered. Leaf of 
coarse fibre was used for the core of the cigars, with only a 
fold or two wrapped round it of more delicate quality. He 
took me into the different rooms where the manufacture was 
going on. In the first were perhaps a hundred or a hundred 
and fifty sallow-faced young men engaged in rolling. They 
were all Cubans or Spaniards with the exception of a single 
negro ; and all, I should think, under thirty. On each of the 
tables was one of the names with which we have grown famil- 
iar in modern cigar shops, Reynas, Regalias, Principes, and 



Cigar Manufactories. 311 

I know not how many else. The difference of material could 
not be great, but there was a real difference in the fineness 
of the make, and in the quality of the exterior leaf. The 
Avorkmen were of unequal capacity and were uuequally paid. 
The senor employed in all about 1,400 ; at least so I under- 
stood him. 

The black field hands had eighteenpence a day. The rollers 
were paid by quality and quantity ; a good workman doing 
his best could earn sixty dollars a week, an idle and indiffer- 
ent one about twelve. They smoked as they rolled, and there 
was no check upon the consumption, the loss in this way be- 
ing estimated at 40,000 dollars a year. The pay was high ; 
but there was another side to it — the occupation was danger- 
ous. If there were no old men in the room, there were no 
boys. Those who undertook it died often in two or three 
years. Doubtless with precaution the mortality might be 
diminished ; but, like the needle and scissor grinders in Eng- 
land, the men themselves do not wish it to be diminished. 
The risk enters into the wages, and they prefer a short life 
and a merry one. 

The cigarettes, of which the varieties are as many as there 
are of cigars, were made exclusively by Chinese. The second 
room which we entered was full of them, their curious yellow 
faces mildly bending over their tobacco heaps. Of these 
there may have been a hundred. Of the general expenses of 
the establishment I do not venture to say anything, bewil- 
dered as I was in the labyrinthine complication of the cur- 
rency, but it must certainly be enormous, and this house, the 
Partagas, was but one of many equally extensive in Havana 
alone. 

The senor was most liberal. He filled my pockets with 
packets of excellent cigarettes ; he gave me a bundle of cigars. 
I cannot say whether they were equal to what I bought from 
my contraband ida, for these may have been idealised bv a 



312 The English in the West Indies. 

grateful memory, but they were so incomparably better than 
any which I have been able to get in London that I was 
tempted to deal with him, and so far I have had no reason to 
repent. The boxes with which he provided me bettered the 
sample, and the price, duty at home included, was a third 
below what I should have paid in London for an article which 
I would rather leave unconsumed. A broker whom I fell in 
with insisted to me that the best cigars all went to London, 
that my preference for what I got from my seiior was mere 
fancy and vanity, and that I could buy better in any shop in 
Regent Street. I said that he might but I couldn't, and so 
we left it. 

I tell all this, not with the affectation of supposing that 
tobacco or my own taste about it can have any interest, but 
as an illustration of what can be done in the West Indies, 
and to show how immense a form of industry waits to be 
developed in our own islands, if people with capital and 
knowledge choose to set about it. Tobacco as good as the 
best in Cuba has been grown and can be grown in Jamaica, 
in St. Domingo, and probably in every one of the Antilles. 
'There are dollars in those islands,' as my Yankee said, and 
many a buried treasure will be brought to light there when 
capitalists can feel assured that they will not be at the mercy 
of black constitutional governments. 

My letter of introduction to the Captain-General was still 
undelivered, and as I had made use of it on landing I thought 
it right at least to pay my respects to the great man. The 

Marques M kindly consented to go with me and help me 

through the interview, being of course acquainted with him. 
He was at his country house, a mile out of the town. The 
buildings are all good in Havana. It was what it called itself, 
not a palace but a handsome country residence in the middle 
of a large well-kept garden. The viceroyalty has a fair but 
not extravagant income attached to it. The Captain-General 



The Captain- General. 313 

receives about 8,0007. a year besides allowances. Were the 
balls and dinners expected of Lira which our poor governors 
are obliged to entertain their subjects with, he would not be 
able to make much out of it. The large fortunes which used 
to be brought back by the fortunate Captains-General who 
could connive at the slave trade were no longer attainable ; 
those good days are gone. Public opinion therefore permits 
them to save their incomes. The Spaniards are not a hospi- 
table people, or rather their notion of hospitality differs in 
form from ours. They are ready to dine with you them- 
selves as often as you will ask them. Nothing in the shape 
of dinners is looked for from the Captain-General, and when 
I as a stranger suggested the possibility of such a thing hap- 
pening to me, my companion assured me that I need not be 
in the least alarmed. We were introduced into a well-pro- 
portioned hall, with a few marble busts in it and casts of 
Greek and Roman statues. Aides-de-camp and general offi- 
cers were lounging about, with whom we exchanged distant 
civilities. After waiting for a quarter of an hour we were 
summoned by an official into an adjoining room and found 
ourselves in his Excellency's presence. He was a small gen- 
tlemanlike-looking man, out of uniform, in plain morning 
dress with a silk sash. He received us with natural polite- 
ness ; cordiality was uncalled for, but he was perfectly gra- 
cious. He expressed his pleasure at seeing me in the island ; 
he hoped that I should enjoy myself, and on his part would 
do everything in his power to make my stay agreeable. He 
spoke of the emancipation of the slaves and of the social state 
of the island with pardonable satisfaction, inquired about our 
own West Indies, &c, and finally asked me to tell him in 
what way he could be of service to me. I told him that I 
had found such kind friends in Havana already, that I could 
think of little. One thing only he could do if he pleased. I 
had omitted to bring a passport with me, not knowing that 



314 The English in the West Indies. 

it would be required. My position was irregular and might 
be inconvenient. I was indebted to my letter of introduc- 
tion to his Excellency for admission into his dominions. 
Perhaps he would write a few words which would enable me 
to remain in them and go out of them when my visit was 
over. His Excellency said that he would instruct the Go- 
bierno Civil to see to it, an instruction the meaning of which 
I too sadly understood. I was not to be allowed to escape 
the fine. A fresh shower followed of polite words, and with 
these we took ourselves away. 

The afternoon was spent more instructively, perhaps more 

agreeably, in a different scene. The Marques M had 

been a pupil of the Jesuits. He had personal friends in the 
Jesuit college at Havana, especially one, Father Vifiez, whose 
name is familiar to students of meteorological science, and 
who has supplemented and corrected the accepted law of 
storms by careful observation of West Indian hurricanes. 
The Jesuits were as well sj)oken of in Havana as the Mora- 
vians in Jamaica. Everyone had a good word for them. 
They alone, as I have said, took the trouble to provide the 
good people there with a sermon on Sundays. The} T alone 
among the Catholic clergy, though they live poorly and have 
no endowment, exert themselves to provide a tolerable edu- 
cation for the middle and upper classes. The Marques under- 
took that if we called we should be graciously received, and 
I was curious and interested. Their college had been an 
enormous monastery. Wherever the Spaniards w T ent they 
took an army of monks with them of all the orders. The 
monks contrived always to house themselves handsomeiy. 
While soldiers fought and settlers planted, the monks' duty 
was to pray. In process of time it came to be doubted 
whether the monks' prayers were worth what they cost, or 
whether, in fact, they had ever had much effect of any kind. 
They have been suppressed in Spain ; they have been clipped 



Tfie Jesuit College. 315 

short in all the Spanish dominions, and in Havana there are 
now left only a handful of Dominicans, a few nuns, and these 
Jesuits, who have taken possession of the largest of the con- 
vents, much as a soldier-crab becomes the vigorous tenant of 
the shell of some lazy sea-snail. They have a college there 
where there are four hundred lads and young men who pay 
for their education ; some hundreds more are taken out of 
charity. The Jesuits conduct the whole, and do it all nn- 
aided, on their own resources. And this is far from all that 
they do. They keep on a level with the age ; they are men 
of learning ; they are men of science ; they are the Royal 
Society of Cuba. They have an observatory in the college, 
and the Father Vifiez of whom I have spoken is in charge of 
it. Father Vinez was our particular object. The porter's 
lodge opened into a courtyard like the quadrangle of a col- 
lege at Oxford. From the courtyard we turned into a nar- 
row staircase, up which we climbed till we reached the roof, 
on and under which the Father had his lodgings and his ob- 
serving machinery. We entered a small room, plainly fur- 
nished with a table and a few uncushioned chairs ; table and 
chairs, all save the Father's, littered with books and papers. 
Cases stood round the wall, containing self-registering in- 
struments of the most advanced modern type, each with its 
paper barrel unrolling slowly under clockwork, while a pen- 
cil noted upon it the temperature of the air, the atmospheric 
pressure, the degree of moisture, the ozone, the electricity. 
In the middle, surrounded by his tools and his ticking clocks, 
sat the Father, middle-aged, lean and dry, with shrivelled skin 
and brown and threadbare frock. He received my companion 
with a warm affectionate smile. The Marques told him that I 
was an Englishman who was curious about the work in which 
he was engaged, and he spoke to me at once with the polite- 
ness of a man of sense. After a few questions asked and an- 
swered, he took us out to a shed among the roof-tiles, where he 



316 The English in the West Indies. 

kept his large telescope, his equatorial, and his transit instru- 
ments — not on the great scale of State-supported observato- 
ries, but with everything which was really essential. He had a 
laboratory, too, and a workshop, with all the recent appliances. 
He was a practical optician and mechanic. He managed and 
repaired his own machinery, observed, made his notes, and 
wrote his reports to the societies with which he was in corre- 
spondence, all by himself. The outfit of such an establish- 
ment, even on a moderate scale, is expensive. I said I sup- 
posed that the Government gave him a grant. ' So far from 
it,' he said, - that we have to pay a duty on every instrument 
which we import.' 'Who, then, pays for it all?' I asked. 
' The order,' he answered, quite simply. 

The house, I believe, was a gift, though it cost the State 
nothing, having been simply seized when the monks were ex- 
pelled. The order now maintains it, and more than repays 
the Government for their single act of generosity. At my 
companion's suggestion Father Viiiez gave me a copy of his 
book on hurricanes. It contains a record of laborious jour- 
neys which he made to the scene of the devastations of the 
last ten years. The scientific value of the Father's work is 
recognised by the highest authorities, though I cannot vent- 
ure even to attempt to explain what he has done. He then 
conducted us over the building, and showed us the libraries, 
dormitories, playgrounds, and all the other arrangements 
which were made for the sudents. Of these we saw none. 
They were all out, but the long tables in the -refectory were 
laid for afternoon tea. There was a cup of milk for each lad, 
with a plate of honey and a roll of bread ; and supper would 
follow in the evening. The sleeping gallery was divided into 
cells, open at the top for ventilation, with bed, table, chest of 
drawers, and washing apparatus — all scrupulously clean. So 
far as I could judge, the Fathers cared more for the boys' 
comfort than for their own. Through an open door our con- 



Clubs in Havana. 317 

ductor faintly indicated the apartment which belonged to 
himself. Four bare walls, a bare tiled floor, a plain pallet, 
with a crucifix above the pillow, was all that it contained. 
There was no parade of ecclesiasticism. The libraries were 
well furnished, but the books were chiefly secular and scien- 
tific. The chapel was unornamented ; there were a few pict- 
ures, but they were simple and inoffensive. Everything was 
good of its kind, down to the gymnastic courts and swimming 
bath. The holiness was kept in the background. It was in 
the spirit and not in the body. The cost of the whole estab- 
lishment was defrayed out of the payments of the richer stu- 
dents managed economically for the benefit of the rest, with 
complete indifference on the part of the Fathers to indul- 
gence and pleasures of their own. As we took leave the Mar- 
ques kissed his old master's brown hand. I rather envied 
him the privilege. 

Something I saw of Havana society in the received sense of 
the word. There are many clubs there, and high play in 
most of them, for the Cubans are given to the roulette tables. 
The Union Club, which is the most distinguished among 
them, invites occasional strangers staying in the city to tem- 
porary membership as we do at the Athenseum. Here you 
meet Spanish grandes, who have come to Cuba to be out of 
reach of revolution, proud as ever and not as poor as you 
might expect ; and when you ask who they are you hear the 
great familiar names of Spanish history. I was introduced to 
the president — young, handsome, and accomplished. I was 
startled to learn that he was the head of the old house of 
Sandoval. The house of Columbus ought to be there also, 
for there is still a Christophe Colon, the direct linear repre- 
sentative of the discoverer, disguised under the title of the 
Duque de Veragua. A perpetual pension of 20,000 dollars a 
year was granted to the great Christophe and his heirs for 
ever as a charge on the Cuban revenue. It has been paid to 



318 The English in the West Indies. 

the family through all changes of dynasty and forms of govern- 
ment, and is paid to them still. But the Duque resides in 
Spain, and the present occupation of him, I was informed, is 
the breeding and raising bulls for the Plaza de Toros at Seville. 
Thus, every way, my stay was made agreeable to me. 
There were breakfasts and dinners and introductions. Don 

G and his brother were not fine gentlemen only, but 

were men of business and deeply engaged in the active life 
of the place. The American consul was a conspicuous figure 
at these entertainments. America may not find it her inter- 
est to annex these islands, but since she ordered the French 
out of Mexico, and the French obeyed, she is universally felt 
on that side of the Atlantic to be the supreme arbiter of all 
their fates. Her consuls are thus persons of consequence. 
The Cubans like the Americans well. The commercial treaty 
which was offered to our islands by the United States would 
have been eagerly accepted by the Spaniards. To them, 
however, the Americans have as yet not been equally liberal. 
They say that they have hills of solid iron in the island and 
mountains of copper with 50 per cent, of virgin copper in 
them waiting for the Americans to develop, and likely I sup- 
pose to wait a little longer. The present administration 
would swallow up in taxation the profits of the most promis- 
ing enterprise that ever was undertaken, but the metals are 
there, and will come one day into working. The consul was 
a swift peremptory man who knew his own mind at any rate. 
Between his 'Yes, sir,' and his 'No, sir,' you were at no 
loss for his meaning. He told me a story of a 'nigger' of- 
ficer with whom he had once got into conversation at Hayti. 
He had inquired why they let so fine an island run to waste ? 
Why did they not cultivate it? The dusky soldier laid his 
hand upon his breast and waved his hand. ' Ah,' he said, 
' that might do for English or Germans or Franks ; we of 
the Latin race have higher things to occupy us.' 



Vedado. 319 

I liked the consul well. I could not say as much for his 
countrymen and countrywomen at my hotel. Individually I 
dare say they would have been charming ; collectively they 
drove me to distraction. Space and time had no existence 
for them ; they and their voices were heard in all places and 
at all hours. The midnight bravuras at the pianos mixed 

wildly in my broken dreams. The Marques M wished to 

take me with him to his country seat and show me his sugar 
plantations. Nothing could have been more delightful, but 
with waut of sleep and the constant racket I found myself 
becoming unwell. In youth and strength one can defy the 
foul fiend and bid him do his worst ; in age one finds it 
wiser to get out of the way. 

On the sea, seven miles from Havana, and connected with 
it by a convenient railway, at a place called Vedado, I found 
a lodging house kept by a Frenchman (the best cook in Cuba) 
with a German wife. The situation was so attractive, and the 
owners of it so attentive, that quiet people went often into 
' retreat ' there. There were delicious rooms, airy and soli- 
tary as I could wish. The sea washed the coral rock under 
the windows. There were walks wild as if there was no city 
within a thousand miles — up the banks of lonely rivers, over 
open moors, or among inclosures where there were large 
farming establishments with cattle and horses and exten- 
sive stables and sheds. There was a village and a harbour 
where fishing people kept their boats and went out daily 
with their nets and lines — blacks and whites living and 
working side by side. I could go where I pleased without 
fear of interference or question. Only I was warned to be 
careful of the dogs, large and dangerous, descendants of the 
f.unous Cuban bloodhounds, which are kept everywhere to 
guard the yards and houses. They were really danger- 
ous, and had to be avoided. The shore was of inex- 
haustible interest. It was a level shelf of coral rock extend- 



320 The English in the West Indies. 

ing for many miles and littered over with shells and coral 
branches which had been flung up by the surf. I had hoped 
for bathing. In the open water it is not to be thought of on 
account of the sharks, but baths have been cut in the rock all 
along that part of the coast at intervals of half a mile ; deep 
square basins with tunnels connecting them with the sea, up 
which the waves run clear and foaming. They are within in- 
closures, roofed over to keep out the sun, and with attend- 
ants regularly present. Art and nature combined never made 
more charming pools ; the water clear as sapphire, aerated by 
the constant inrush of the foaming breakers, and so warm that 
you could lie in it without a chill for hours Alas ! that I 
could but look at them and execrate the precious Government 
which forbade me their use. So severe a tax is laid on these 
bathing establishments that the owners can only afford to keep 
them open during the three hottest months in the year, when 
the demand is greatest. 

In the evenings people from Havana would occasionally 
come down to dine as we go to Greenwich, being attracted 
partly by the air and partly by my host's reputation. There 
was a long verandah under which tables were laid out, and 
there were few nights on which one or more parties were not 
to be seen there. Thus I encountered several curious speci- 
mens of Cuban humanity, and on one of my runs up to Ha- 
vana I met again the cigar broker who had so roughly chal- 
lenged my judgment. He was an original and rather divert- 
ing man ; I should think a Jew. Whatever he was he fell 
upon me again and asked me scornfully whether I supposed 
that the cigars which I had bought of Sefior Bances were 
anything out of the way. I said that they suited my taste 
and that was enough. 'Ah,' he replied, ' Cadet loco con su 
tenia. Every fool had his opinion.' ' I am the loco (idiot), 
then,' said I, ' but that again is matter of opinion.' He spoke 
of Cuba and professed to know all about it. ' Can you tell 



Visitors at Vedado. 321 

me, then,' said I, ' why the Cubans hate the Spaniards ? ' 
' Why do the Irish hate the English ? ' he answered. I said 
it was not an analogous case. Cubans and Spaniards were of 
the same breed and of the same creed. ' That is nothing,' lie 
replied ; ' the Americans will have them both before long.' I 
said I thought the Americans were . too wise to meddle with 
either. If they did, however, I imagined that on our own 
side of the Atlantic we should have something to sa} T on the 
subject before Ireland was taken from us. He laughed good- 
humouredly. ' Is it possible, sir,' he said, ' that you live in 
England and are so absolutely ignorant?' I laughed too. 
He was a strange creature, and would have made an excellent 
character in a novel. 

Don G or his brother came down occasionally to see 

how I was getting on and to talk philosophy and history. 
Other gentlemen came, and the favourite subject of conversa- 
tion was Spanish administration. One of them told me this 
story as an illustration of it. His father was the chief part- 
ner in a bank ; a clerk absconded, taking 50,000 dollars with 
him. He had been himself sent in pursuit of the man, over- 
took him with the money still in his possession, and recovered 
it. With this he ought to have been contented, but he tried 
to have the offender punished. The clerk replied to the 
criminal charge by a counter-charge against the house. It 
was absurd in itself, but he found that a suit would grow out 
of it which would swallow more than the 50,000 dollars, and 
finally he bribed the judge to allow him to drop the prosecu- 
tion. Cosas de Espana ; it lies in the breed. Guzman de Al- 
farache was robbed of his baggage by a friend. The facts 
were clear, the thief was caught with Guzman's clothes on his 
back ; but he had influential friends — he was acquitted. He 
prosecuted Guzman for a false accusation, got a judgment and 
ruined him. 

The question was, whether if the Cubans could make them- 
21 



322 The English in the West Indies. 

selves independent there would be much improvement. The 
want in Cuba just now, as in a good many other places, is the 
want of some practical religion which insists on moral duty. 
A learned English judge was trying a case one day, when 
there seemed some doubt about the religious condition of one 
of the witnesses. The clerk of the court retired with him to 
ascertain what it really was, and returned radiant almost im- 
mediately, saying, 'All right, my lord. Knows he'll be 
damned — competent witness — knows he'll be damned.' That 
is really the whole of the matter. If a man is convinced that 
if he does wrong he will infallibly be punished for it he has 
then ' a saving faith.' This, unfortunately, is precisely the 
conviction which modern forms of religion produce hardly 
anywhei'e. The Cubans are Catholics, and hear mass and 
go to confession ; but confession and the mass between 
them are enough for- the consciences of most of them, and 
those who think are under the influence of the modern 
spirit, to which all things are doubtful. Some find com- 
fort in Mr. Herbert Spencer. Some regard Christianity 
as a myth or poem, which had passed in unconscious good 
faith into the mind of mankind, and there might have re- 
mained undisturbed as a beneficent superstition had not 
Protestantism sprung up and insisted on flinging away 
everything which was not literal and historical fact. His- 
torical fact had really no more to do with it than with 
the stories of Prometheus or the siege of Troy. The end 
was that no bottom of fact could be found, and we were all 
set drifting. 

Notably too I observed among serious people there, what I 
have observed in other places, the visible relief with which 
they begin to look forward to extinction after death. When 
the authority is shaken on which the belief in a future life 
rests, the question inevitably recurs. Men used to pretend 
that the idea of annihilation was horrible to them ; now 



The Cemetery. 323 

they regard the probability of it with calmness, if not with 
actual satisfaction. One very interesting Cuban gentleman 
said to me that life would be very tolerable if one was cer- 
tain that death would be the end of it. The theologi- 
cal alternatives were equally unattractive ; Tartarus was an 
eternity of misery, and the Elysian Fields an eternity of 
ennui. 

There is affectation in the talk of men, and one never knows 
from what they say exactly what is in their mind. I have 
often thought that the real character of a people shows itself 
nowhere with more unconscious completeness than in their 
cemeteries. Philosophise as we may, few of us are deliber- 
ately insincere in the presence of death ; and in the arrange- 
ments which we make for the reception of those who have 
been dear to us, and in the lines which we inscribe upon their 
monuments, we show what we are in ourselves perhaps more 
than what they were whom we commemorate. The parish 
churchyard is an emblem and epitome of English country 
life ; London reflects itself in Brompton and Ken sal Green, 
and Paris in Pere la Chaise. One day as I was walking I 
found myself at the gate of the great suburban cemetery of 
Havana. It was inclosed within high walls ; the gateway was 
a vast arch of pink marble, beautiful and elaborately carved. 
Within there was a garden simply and gracefully laid out 
with trees and shrubs and flowers in borders. The whole 
space inclosed may have been ten acres, of which half was 
assigned to those who were contented with a mere mound of 
earth to mark where they lay ; the rest was divided into 
family vaults covered with large white marble slabs, sep- 
arate headstones marking individuals for whom a particular 
record was required, and each group bearing the name 
of the family the members of which were sleepiug there. 
The peculiarity of the place was the absence of inscrip- 
tions. There was a name and date, with E. P. D. — 'en 



324 The English in the West Indies. 

paz descansa " — or E. G. E. — c en gracia esta,' 2 — and that 
seemed all that was needed. The virtues of the departed 
and the grief of the survivors were taken for granted in 
all but two instances. There may have been more, but I 
could find only these. 
One was in Latin : 

AD CCELITES EVOCAT.E UXOEI EXIMLE IGNATIUS. 

Ignatius to his admirable wife who has been called up to heaven. 

The other was in Spanish verse, and struck me as a graceful 
imitation of the old manner of Cervantes and Lope De Vega. 
The design on the monument was of a girl hanging an im- 
mortelle upon a cross. The tomb was of a Caridad del Monte, 
and the lines were : 

Bendita Caridad, las que piadosa 
Su mano vierte en la f unerea losa 
Son flores recogidas en el snelo, 
Mas con su olor perf umarrin el cielo. 

It is dangerous for anyone to whom a language is only 
moderately familiar to attempt an appreciation of elegiac 
poetry, the effect of which, like the fragrance of a violet, must 
rather be perceived than accounted for. He may imagine 
what is not there, for a single word ill placed or ill chosen 
may spoil the charm, and of this a foreigner can never en- 
tirely judge. He may know what each word means, but he 
cannot know the associations of it. Here, however, is a trans- 
lation in which the sense is preserved, though the aroma is 
gone. 

The flowers which thou, oh blessed Charity, 
With pious hand hast twined in funeral wreath, 
Although on earthly soil they gathered be, 
Will sweeten heaven with their perfumed breath. 

1 He rests iu peace. 2 He is now in grace. 



An American Bishoj?. 325 

The flowers, I suppose, were the actions of Caridad's own 
innocent life, which she was offering on the cross of Christ ; 
but one never can be sure that one has caught the exact sen- 
timent of emotional verse in a foreign language. The beauty 
lies in an undefinable sweetness which rises from the melody 
of the words, and in a translation disappears altogether. 
Who or what Caridad del Monte was, whether a young girl 
whom somebody had loved, or an allegoric and emblematic 
figure, I had no one to tell me. 

I must not omit one acquaintance which I was fortunate 
enough to make while staying at my seaside lodging. There 
appeared there one day, driven out of Havana like myself by 
the noise, an American ecclesiastic with a friend who ad- 
dressed him as ' My lord.' By the ring and purple, as well 
as by the title, I perceived that he was a bishop. His friend 
was his chaplain, and from their voices I gathered that they 
were both by extraction Irish. The bishop had what is called 
a ' clergyman's throat,' and had come from the States in 
search of a warmer climate. They kept entirely to them- 
selves, but from the laughter and good- humour they were 
evidently excellent company for one another, and wanted no 
other. I rather wished than hoped that accident might in- 
troduce me to them. Even in Cuba the weather is uncertain. 
One day there came a high wind from the sea ; the waves 
roared superbly upon the rocks, flying over them in rolling 
cataracts. I never saw foam so purely white or waves so 
transparent. As a spectacle it was beautiful, and the shore 
became a museum of coralline curiosities. Indoors the ef- 
fect was less agreeable. Windows rattled and shutters broke 
from their fastenings and flew to and fro. The weathercock 
on the house-top creaked as he was whirled about, and the 
verandahs had to be closed, and the noise was like a pro- 
longed thunder peal. The second day the wind became a 
cyclone, and chilly as if it came from the pole. None of us 



326 The English in the West Indies. 

could stir out. The bishop suffered even more than I did ; 
he walked up and down on the sheltered side of the house 
wrapped in a huge episcopalian cloak. I think he saw that I 
was sorry for him, as I really was. He spoke to me ; he said 
he had felt the cold less in America when the thermometer 
marked 25° below zero. It was not much, but the silence 
was broken. Common suffering made a kind of link between 
us. After this he dropped an occasional gracious word as he 
passed, and one morning he came and sat by me and began 
to talk on subjects of extreme interest. Chiefly he insisted 
on the rights of conscience and the tenderness for liberty of 
thought which had always been shown by the Church of 
Rome. He had been led to speak of it by the education 
question which has now become a burning one in the Ameri- 
can Union. The Church, he said, never had interfered, and 
never could or would interfere, with any man's conscientious 
scruples. Its own scruples, therefore, ought to be respected. 
The American State schools were irreligious, and Catholic 
parents were unwilling to allow their children to attend 
them. They had established schools of their own, and they 
supported them by subscriptions among themselves. In 
these schools the boys and girls learnt everything which 
they could learn in the State schools, and they learnt to be 
virtuous besides. They were thus discharging to the full 
every duty which the State could claim of them, and the 
State had no right to tax them in addition for the main- 
tenance of institutions of which they made no use, and of 
the principles of which they disapproved. There were now 
eight millions of Catholics in the Union. In more than one 
state they had an actual majority ; and they intended to 
insist that as long as their children came up to the present 
educational standard, they should no longer be compelled 
to pay a second education tax to the Government. The 
struggle, he admitted, would be a severe one, but the Cath- 




Iff ' Iff I ' :! 



An American Bishop. 327 

olics had justice on their side, and would fight on till they 
won. 

In democracies the majority is to prevail, and if the con- 
trol of education falls within the province of each separate 
state government, it is not easy to see on what ground the 
Americans will be able to resist, or how there can be a strug- 
gle at all where the Catholic vote is really the largest. The 
presence of the Catholic Church in a democracy is the real 
anomaly. The principle of the Church is authority resting 
on a divine commission ; the principle of democracy is the 
will of the people ; and the Church in the long run will have 
as hard a battle to fight with the divine right of the majority 
of numbers as she had with the divine right of the Hohen- 
stauffens and the Plantagenets. She is adroit in adapting 
herself to circumstances, and, like her emblem the fish, she 
changes her colour with that of the element in which she 
swims. No doubt she has a strong position in this demand 
and will know how to use it. 

But I was surprised to hear even a Catholic bishop insist 
that his Church had always paid so much respect to the rights 
of conscience. I had been taught to believe that in the days 
of its power the Church had not been particularly tender 
towards differences of opinion. Fire and sword had been 
used freely enough as long as fire and sword were available. 
I hinted my astonishment. The bishop said the Church had 
been slandered ; the Church had never in a single instance 
punished any man merely for conscientious error. Protest- 
ants had falsified history. Protestants read their histor- 
ies, Catholics read theirs, and the Catholic version was the 
true one. The separate governments of Europe had no 
doubt been cruel. In France, Spain, the Low Countries, 
even in England, heretics had been harshly dealt with, but 
it was the governments that had burnt and massacred all 
those people, not the Church. The governments were 



328 The English in the West Indies. 

afraid of heresy because it led to revolution. The Church 
had never shed any blood at all ; the Church could not, 
for she was forbidden to do so by her own canons. If she 
found a man obstinate in unbelief, she cut him off from the 
communion and handed him over to the secular arm. If 
the secular arm thought fit to kill him, the Church's hands 
were clear of it. 

So Pilate washed his hands ; so the judge might say he 
never hanged a murderer ; the execution was the work of the 
hangman. The bishop defied me to produce an instance in 
which in Rome, when the temporal power was with the pope 
and the civil magistrates were churchmen, there had ever 
been an execution for heresy. I mentioned Giordano Bruno, 
whom the bishop had forgotten ; but we agreed not to quar- 
rel, and I could not admire sufficiently the hardihood and 
the ingenuity of his argument. The English bishops and 
abbots passed through parliament the Act de hceretico com- 
burendo, but they were acting as politicians, not as church- 
men. The Spanish Inquisition burnt freely and success- 
fully. The inquisitors were archbishops and bishops, but 
the Holy Office was a function of the State. "When Gregory 
XIII. struck his medal in commemoration of the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew he was then only the secular ruler of 
Rome, and therefore fallible and subject to sin like other 
mortals. 

The Church has many parts to play ; her stage wardrobe 
is well furnished, and her actors so well instructed in their 
parts that they believe themselves in all that they say. The 
bishop was speaking no more than his exact conviction. He 
told me that in the Middle Ages secular princes were bound 
by their coronation oath to accept the pope as the arbiter of 
all quarrels between them. I asked where this oath was, or 
what were the terms of it ? The words, he said, were unim- 
portant. The fact was certain, and down to the fatal schism 



An American Bishop. 329 

of the sixteenth century the pope had always been allowed 
to arbitrate, and quarrels had been prevented. I could but 
listen and wonder. He admitted that he had read one set 
of books and I another, as it was clear that he must have 
done. 

In the midst of our differences we found we had many 
points of agreement. "We agreed that the breaking down 
of Church authority at the Reformation had been a fatal 
disaster ; that without a sense of responsibility to a super- 
natural power, human beings would sink into ingenious 
apes, that human society would become no more than a 
congregation of apes, and that with differences of opinion 
and belief, that sense was becoming more and more ob- 
scured. So long as all serious men held the same con- 
victions, and those convictions were embodied in the law, 
religion could speak with authority. The authority being 
denied or shaken, the fact itself became uncertain. The 
notion that everybody had a right to think as he pleased 
was felt to be absurd in common things. The ignorant sub- 
mitted to be guided by those who were better instructed 
than themselves ; why should they be left to their private 
judgment on subjects where to go wrong was the more dan- 
gerous? All this was plain sailing. The corollary that if 
it is to retain its influence the Church must not teach doc- 
trines which outrage the common sense of mankind as 
Luther led half Europe to believe that the Church was 
doing in the sixteenth century, Ave agreed that we would not 
dispute about. But I was interested to see that the leopard 
had not changed its spots, that it merely readjusted its at- 
titudes to suit the modern taste, and that if it ever recov- 
ered its power it would claw and scratch in the old way. 
Rome, like Pilate, may protest its innocence of the blood 
which was spilt in its name and in its interests. Did that 
tender and merciful court ever suggest to those prelates who 



330 The English in the West Indies. 

passed the Act in England for the burning of heretics that 
they were transgressing the sacred rights of conscience ? 
Did it reprove the Inquisition or send a mild remonstrance 
to Philip II. ? The eyes of those who are willing to be 
blinded will see only what they desire to see. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Return to Havana— The Spaniards in Cuba — Prospects — American influ- 
ence — Future of the West Indies— English rumours — Leave Cuba — 
The harbour at night — The Bahama Channel — Hayti — Port au Prince 
— The black republic — West Indian history. 

The air and quiet of Veclado (so my retreat was called) soon 
set me up again, and I was able to face once more my hotel 
and its Americans. I did not attempt to travel in Cuba, nor 
was it necessary for my purpose. I stayed a few days longer 
at Havana. I went to operas and churches ; I sailed about 
the harbour in boats, the boatmen, all of them, not negroes, 
as in the Antilles, but emigrants from the old country, chiefly 
Galicians. I met people of all sorts, among the rest a Spanish 
officer — a major of engineers — who, if he lives, may come to 

something. Major D took me over the fortifications, 

showed me the interior lines of the Moro, and their latest 
specimens of modern artillery. The garrison are, of course, 
Spanish regiments made of home-bred Castilians, as I could 
not fail to recognize when I heard any of them speak. There 
are certain words of common use in Spain powerful as the 
magic formulas of enchanters over the souls of men. You 
hear them everywhere in the Peninsula ; at cafe's, at tables 
d'hote, and in private conversation. They are a part of the 
national intellectual equipment. Either from prudery or be- 
cause they are superior to old-world superstitions, the Cubans 
have washed these expressions out of their language ; but the 
national characteristics are preserved in the army, and the 
spell does not lose its efficacy because the islanders disbelieve 



332 The English in the West Indies. 

in it. I have known a closed post office in Madrid, where 
the clerk was deaf to polite entreaty, blown open by an oath 
as by a bomb shell. A squad of recruits in the Moro, who 
were lying in the shade under a tree, neglected to rise as an 

officer went by. 'Saludad, C o!' he thundered out, and 

they bounded to their feet as if electrified. 

On the whole Havana was something to have seen. It is 
the focus and epitome of Spanish dominion in those seas, and 
I was forced to conclude that it was well for Cuba that the 
English attempts to take possession of it had failed. Be the 
faults of their administration as heavy as they are alleged to 
be, the Spaniards have done more to Europeanise their islands 
than we have done with ours. They have made Cuba Span- 
ish — Trinidad, Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada have never been 
English at all, and Jamaica and Barbadoes are ceasing to be 
English. Cuba is a second home to the Spaniards, a perma- 
nent addition to their soil. We are as birds of passage, tem- 
porary residents for transient purposes, with no home in our 
islands at all. Once we thought them worth fighting for, and 
as long as it was a question of ships and cannon we made 
ourselves supreme rulers of the Caribbean Sea ; yet the French 
and Spaniards will probably outlive us there ; they will re- 
main perhaps as satellites of the United States, or in some 
other confederacy, or in recovered strength of their own. 
We, in a generation or two, if the causes now in operation 
continue to work as they are now working, shall have disap- 
peared from the scene. In Cuba there is a great Spanish 
population ; Martinique and Guadaloupe are parts of France. 
To us it seems a matter of indifference whether we keep our 
islands,pr abandon them, and we leave ihe remnants of our 
once precious settlements to float or drown as they can. Aus- 
tralia and Canada take care of themselves ; we expect our 
West Indies to do the same, careless of the difference of cir- 
cumstance. We no longer talk of cutting our colonies adrift ; 



West Indian Prospects. 333 

the tone of public opinion is changed, and no one dares to 
advocate openly the desertion of the least important of 
thein. But the neglect and indifference continue. We will 
not govern them effectively ourselves : our policy, so far 
as we have any policy, is to extend among them the prin- 
ciples of self-government, and self-government can only 
precipitate our extinction there as completely as we know 
that it would do in India if we were rash enough to ven- 
ture the plunge. There is no enchantment in self-govern- 
ment which will make people love each other when they 
are indifferent or estranged. It can only force them into 
sharper collision. 

The opinion in Cuba was, and is, that America is the resid- 
uary legatee of all the islands, Spanish and English equally, 
and that she will be forced to take charge of them in the end 
whether she likes it or not. Spain governs unjustly and cor- 
ruptly ; the Cubans will not rest till they are free from her, 
and if once independent they will throw themselves on 
American protection. 

We will not govern our islands at all, but leave them to 
drift. Jamaica and the Antilles, given over to the negro 
majorities, can only become like Hayti and St. Domingo ; 
and the nature of things will hardly permit so fair a part of 
the earth which has been once civilised .and under white 
control to fall back into barbarism. 

To England the loss of the West Indies would not itself be 
serious ; but in the life of nations discreditable failures are 
not measured by their immediate material consequences. 
To allow a group of colonies to slide out of our hands be- 
cause we could not or would not provide them with a toler- 
able government would be nothing less than a public dis- 
grace. It would be an intimation to all the world that we 
were unable to maintain any longer the position which our 
fathers had made for us ; and when the unravelling of the 



334 The English, in the West Indies. 

knitted fabric of the Empire has once begun the process will 
be a rapid one. 

' But what would you do ? ' I am asked impatiently. ' We 
send out peers or gentlemen against whose character no di- 
rect objection can be raised ; we assist them with local coun- 
cils partly chosen by the people themselves. We send out 
bishops, we send out missionaries, we open schools. What 
can we do more ? We cannot alter the climate, we cannot 
make planters prosper when sugar will not pay, we cannot 
convert black men into whites, we cannot force the blacks to 
work for the whites when they do not wish to work for them. 
" Governing," as you call it, will not change the natural con- 
ditions of things. You can suggest no remedy, and mere 
fault-finding is foolish and mischievous.' 

I might answer a good many things. Government cannot 
do everything, but it can do something, and there is a differ- 
ence between governors against whom there is nothing to 
object, and men of special and marked capacity. There is a 
difference between governors whose hands are tied by local 
councils and whose feet are tied by instructions from home, 
and a governor with a free hand and a wise head left to take 
his own measures on the spot. I presume that no one can 
seriously expect that an orderly organised nation can be 
made out of the blacks, when, in spite of your schools and 
missionaries, seventy per cent, of the children now born 
among them are illegitimate. You can do for the West In- 
dies, I repeat over and over again, what you do for the East ; 
you can establish a firm authoritative government which 
will protect the blacks in their civil rights and protect the 
whites in theirs. You cannot alter the climate, it is true, or 
make the soil more fertile. Already it is fertile as any in the 
earth, and the climate is admirable for the purposes for wlrch 
it is needed. But you can restore confidence in the stability 
of your tenure, you can give courage to the whites who are 



West Indian Prospects. 335 

on the spot to remain there, and you can tempt capital and 
enterprise to venture there which now seek investments else- 
where. By keeping the rule in your own hands you will re- 
store the white population to their legitimate influence ; the 
blacks will again look up to them and respect them as they 
ought to do. This you can do, and it will cost you nothing 
save a little more pains in the selection of the persons whom 
you are to trust with powers analogous to those which you 
grant to your provincial governors in the Indian peninsula. 

A preliminary condition of this, as of all other real im- 
provements, is one, however, which will hardly be fulfilled. 
Before a beginning can be made, a conviction is wanted that 
life has other objects besides interest and convenience ; and 
very few of us indeed have at the bottom of our hearts any 
such conviction at all. We can talk about it in fine language 
— no age ever talked more or better — but we don't believe in 
it ; we believe only in professing to believe, which soothes 
our vanity and does not interfere with our actions. From 
fine words no harvests grow. The negroes are well disposed 
to follow and obey any white who will be kind and just to 
them, and in such following and obedience their only hope 
of improvement lies. The problem is to create a state of 
things under which Englishmen of vigour and character will 
make their homes among them. Annexation to the United 
States would lead probably to their extermination at no very 
distant time. The Antilles are small, and the fate of the 
negroes there might be no better than the fate of the 
Caribs. The Americans are not a people who can be trifled 
with ; no one knows it better than the negroes. They fear 
them. They prefer infinitely the mild rule of England, and 
under such a government as we might provide if we cared to 
try, the whole of our islands might become like the Moravian 
settlement in Jamaica, and the black nature, which has rather 
degenerated than improved in these late days of licence, 



336 The English in the West Indies. 

might be put again in the way of regeneration. The process 
would be slow — your seedlings in a plantation hang station- 
ary year after year, but they do move at last. We cannot 
disown our responsibility for these poor adopted brothers of 
ours. We send missionaries into Africa to convert them to a 
better form of religion ; why should the attempt seem chi- 
merical to convert them practically to a higher purpose in our 
own colonies ? 

The reader will be weary of a sermon the points of which 
have been reiterated so often. I might say that he requires 
to have the lesson impressed upon him — that it is for his 
good that I insist upon it, and not for my own. But this is 
the common language of all preachers, and it is not found to 
make the hearers more attentive. I will not promise to say 
no more upon the subject, for it was forced upon me at every 
moment and point of my journey. I am arriving near the 
end, however, and if he has followed so far, he will perhaps 
go on with me to the conclusion. I had three weeks to give 
to Havana ; they were fast running out, and it was time for 
me to be going. Strange stories, too, came from England, 
which made me uneasy till I knew how they were set in cir- 
culation. - One day Mr. Gladstone was said to have gone 
mad, and the Queen the next. The Russians were about to 
annex Afghanistan. Our troops had been cut to pieces in 
Burmah. Something was going wrong with us every day in 
one corner of the world or another. I found at last that the 
telegraphic intelligence was supplied to the Cuban news- 
papers from New York, that the telegraph clerks there were 
generally Irish, and their facts were the creation of their 
wishes. I was to return to Jamaica in the same vessel which 
had brought me from it. She had been down to the isthmus, 
and was to call at Havana on her way back. The captain's 
most English face was a welcome sight to me when he ap- 
peared one evening at dinner. He had come to tell me that 



The Harbour at Night. 337 

be was to sail early on the following morning, and I arranged 
to go on board with him the same night. The Captain-Gen- 
eral had not forgotten to instruct the Grobierno Civil to grant 
me an exeat regno. I do not know that I gained much by his 
intercession, for without it I should hardly have been de- 
tained indefinitely, and as it was I had to pay more dollars 
than I liked to part with. The necessary documents, how- 
ever, had been sent through the British consul, and I was 
free to leave when I pleased. I paid my bill at the hotel, 
which was not after all an extravagant one, cleared my poc- 
ket-book of the remainder of the soiled and tattered paper 
which is called money, and does duty for it down to a half- 
penny, and with my distinguished friend Don G , the 

real acquisition which I had made in coming to his country, 
and who would not leave me till I was in the boat, I drove 
away to the wharf. 

It was a still, lovely, starlight night. The moon had risen 
over the hills, and was shining brightly on the roofs and 
towers of the city, and on the masts and spars of the vessels 
which were riding in the harbour. There was not a ripple on 
the water, and stars and city, towers and ships, stood inverted 
on the surface pointing downward as into a second infinity. 
The charm was unfortunately interfered with by odours 
worse than Coleridge found at Cologne and cursed in rhyme. 
The drains of Havana, like orange blossom, give off their 
most fragrant vapours in the dark hours, I could well be- 
lieve Don G 's saying, that but for the natural healthiness 

of the place, they would all die of it like poisoned flies. We 
had to cut our adieus short, for the mouth of some horrid 
sewer was close to us. In the boat I did not escape ; the 
water smelt horribly as it was stirred by the oars, charged as 
it was with three centuries of pollution, and the phosphores- 
cent light shone with a sickly, sulphur-like brilliance. One 

coiixd have fancied that one was in Charon's boat and was 
22 



388 The English in the West Indies. 

crossing Acheron. When I reached the steamer I watched 
from the deck the same ghostlike phenomenon which is de- 
scribed by Tom Cringle. A fathom deep, in the ship's 
shadow, some shark or other monster sailed slowly by in an 
envelope of spectral lustre. When he stopped his figure dis- 
appeared, when he moved on again it was like the movement 
of a streak of blue flame. Such a creature did not seem as if 
it could belong to our familiar sunlit ocean. 

The state of the harbour is not creditable to the Spanish 
Government, and I suppose will not be improved till there is 
some change of dynasty. All that can be said for it is that it 
is not the worst in these seas. Our ship had just come from 
the Canal, and had brought the latest news from thence. 
Fever and pestilence, deaths by revolver and deaths by sti- 
letto, robbery and waste, piles of costly machinery, sole repre- 
sentative of the squandered millions of francs, rusting in the 
swamps. Drink shops and gambling hells, women plying 
their vile profession there, solving the question of the School- 
men whether the devils were of both sexes or only one. 
Money still flowing in rivers, and the human vultures flocking 
to the spoil. No law, no police. Murder, and no inquiry 
into it ; bodies lying about unburied, and wild dogs and 
Johnny crows holding carnival over them. Beautiful last 
creation of the progress and enterprise of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. 

At dawn we swept out under the Moro, and away once 
more into the free fresh open sea. We had come down on 
the south side of the island, we returned by the north up the 
old Bahama Channel where Drake died on his way home from 
his last unsuccessful expedition — Lope de Vega singing a 
paean over the end of the great ' dragon.' Fresh passengers 
brought fresh talk. There was a clever young Jamaican on 
board returning from a holiday ; he had the spirits of youth 
about him, and would bave pleased my American who never 



English Trade in Havana. 339 

knew good come of despondency. He had hopes for his coun- 
try, but they rested, like those of every sensible man that I 
met, on an inability to believe that there would be further 
advances in the direction of political liberty. A revised con- 
stitution, he said, could issue only in fresh Gordon riots and 
fresh calamities. He had been travelling in the Southern 
States. He had seen the state of Mississippi deserted by the 
whites, and falling back into a black wilderness. He had 
seen South Carolina, which had narrowly escaped ruin under 
a black and carpet-bagger legislature, and had recovered it- 
self under the steady determination of the Americans that the 
civil war was not to mean the domination of negro over white. 
The danger was greater in the English islands than in either 
of these states, from the enormous disproportion of numbers. 
The experiment could be ventured only under a high census 
and a restricted franchise, but the experience of all countries 
showed that these limited franchises were invidious and 
could not be maintained. The end was involved in the be- 
ginning, and he trusted that prudent counsels would prevail. 
We had gone too far already. 

On board also there was a traveller from a Manchester 
house of business, who gave me a more nourishing account 
than I expected of the state of our trade, not so much with 
the English islands as with the Spaniards in Cuba and on the 
mainland. His own house, he said, had a large business with 
Havana ; twenty firms in the north of England were com- 
peting there, and all were doing well. The Spanish Ameri- 
cans on the west side of the continent were good customers, 
with the exception of the Mexicans, who were energetic and 
industrious, and manufactured for their own consumption. 
These modern Aztecs were skilful workmen, nimble-fingered 
and inventive. Wages were low, but they were contented 
with them. Mexico, I was surprised to hear from him, was 
rising fast into prosperity. Whether human life was any 



3-iO The English in the West Indies. 

safer then than it was a few years ago, he did not tell 
me. 

Amidst talk and chess and occasional whist after nightfall 
when reading became difficult, we ran along with smooth 
seas, land sometimes in sight, with shoals on either side 
of us. 

We were to have one more glimpse at Hayti ; we were to 
touch at Port au Prince, the seat of government of the suc- 
cessors of Toussaint. If beauty of situation could mould 
human character, the inhabitants of Port au Prince might 
claim to be the first of mankind. St. Domingo or Espanola, 
of which Hayti is the largest division, was the earliest island 
discovered by Columbus and the finest in the Caribbean 
Ocean. It remained Spanish, as I have already said, for 200 
years, when Hayti was taken by the French buccaneers, and 
made over by them to Louis XIV. The French kept it till 
the Revolution. They built towns ; they laid out farms and 
sugar fields ; they planted coffee all over the island, where it 
now grows wild. Vast herds of cattle roamed over the moun- 
tain ; splendid houses rose over the rich savannah. The 
French Church put out its strength ; there were churches 
and priests in every parish ; there were monasteries and nun- 
neries for the religious orders. So firm was the hold that 
they had gained that Hayti, like Cuba, seemed to have been 
made a part of the old world, and as civilised as France it- 
self. But French civilisation became itself electric. The 
Revolution came, and the reign of Libert} 7 . The blacks took 
arms ; they surprised the plantations ; they made a clean 
sweep of the whole French population. Yellow fever swept 
away the armies which were sent to avenge the massacre, and 
France being engaged in annexing Europe had no leisure to 
despatch more. The island being thus derelict, Spain and 
England both tried their hand to recover it, but failed from 
the same cause, and a black nation, with a republican con- 



Port Au Prince. 341 

stitution and a population perhaps of about a million and 
a half of pure-blood negroes, has since been in unchallenged 
possession, and has arrived at the condition which has been 
described to us by Sir Spencer St. John. Kepublics which 
begin with murder and plunder do not come to much good 
in this world. Hayti has passed through many revolutions, 
and is no nearer than at first to stability. The present presi- 
dent, M. Salomon, who was long a refugee in Jamaica, came 
into power a few years back by a turn of the wheel. He was 
described to me as a peremptory gentleman who made quick 
work with his political opponents. His term of office having 
nearly expired, he had re-elected himself shortly before for 
another seven years and was prepared to maintain his right 
by any measures which he might think expedient. He had a 
few regiments of soldiers, who, I was told, were devoted to 
him, and a fleet consisting of two gunboats commanded by an 
American officer to whom he chiefly owed his security. 

We had steamed along the Hayti coast all one afternoon, 
underneath a high range of hills which used to be the bunt- 
ing ground of the buccaneers. We had passed their famous 
Tortugas'" without seeing them. Towards evening we entered 
the long channel between Gonaive island and the mainland, 
going slowly that we might not arrive at Port au Prince be- 
fore daylight. It was six in the morning when the anchor 
rattled down, and I went on deck to look about me. We 
were at the head of a fiord rather broader than those in Nor- 
way, but very like them — wooded mountains rising on either 
side of us, an open valley in front, and on the rich level soil 
washed down by the rains and deposited along the shore, the 
old French and now President Salomon's capital. Palms and 
oranges and other trees were growing everywhere among the 
houses, giving the impression of graceful civilisation. Di- 
rectly before us were three or four wooded islets which form 
'Tortoise Islands.; the buccaneers' head quarters. 



342 The English in the West Indies. 

a natural breakwater, and above them were seen the masts of 
the vessels which, were lying in the harbour behind. Close 
to where we were brought up lay the ' Canada,' an English 
frigate, and about a quarter of a mile from her an American 
frigate of about the same size, with the stars and stripes con- 
spicuously flying. We have had some differences of late with 
the Hayti authorities, and the satisfaction which we ashed for 
having been refused or delayed, a man-of-war had been sent 
to ask redress in more peremptory terms. The town lay 
under her guns ; the president's ships, which she might per- 
haps have seized as a security, had been taken out of sight 
into shallow water, where she could not follow them. The 
Americans have no particular rights in Hayti, and are as little 
liked as we are, but they are feared, and they do not allow 
any business of a serious kind to go on in those waters with- 
out knowing what it is about. Perhaps the president's admi- 
ral of the station being an American may have had something 
to do with their presence. Anyway, there the two ships were 
lying when I came up from below, their hulks and spars out- 
lined picturesquely against the steep wooded shores. The 
air was hot and steamy ; fishing-vessels with white sails were 
drifting slowly about the glassy water. Except for the heat 
and a black officer of the customs in uniform, and his boat 
and black crew alongside, I could have believed myself off 
Molde or some similar Norwegian town, so like everything 
seemed, even to the colour of the houses. 

We were to stay some hours. After breakfast we landed. 
I had seen Jacmel, and therefore thought myself prepared for 
the worst which I should find. Jacmel was an outlying 
symptom ; Port au Prince was the central ulcer. Long before 
we came to shore there came off whiffs, not of drains as at 
Havana, but of active dirt fermenting in the sunlight. Calling 
our handkerchiefs to our help and looking to our feet care- 
fully, we stepped up upon the quay and walked forward as 



Port Au Prince. 343 

judiciously as we could. With the help of stones we crossed 
a shallow ditch, where rotten fish, vegetables, and other articles 
were lying about promiscuously, and we came on what did 
duty for a grand parade. 

"We were in a Paris of the gutter, with boulevards and 
places, fiacres and crimson parasols. The boulevards were 
littered with the refuse of the houses and were foul as pig- 
sties, and the ladies under the parasols were picking their 
way along them in Parisian boots and silk dresses. I saw a 
fiacre broken down in a black pool out of which a blacker 
ladyship was scrambling. Fever breeds so prodigally iu that 
pestilential squalor that 40,000 people were estimated to have 
died of it in a single year. There were shops and stores and 
streets, men and women in tawdry European costume, and 
officers on horseback with a tatter of lace and gilding. We 
passed up the principal avenue, which opened on the market 
place. Above the market was the cathedral, more hideous 
than even the Mormon temple at Salt Lake. It was full of 
ladies ; the rank, beauty, and fashion of Port au Prince were 
at their morning mass, for they are Catholics with African be- 
liefs underneath. They have a French clergy, an archbishop 
and bishop, paid miserably but still subsisting ; subsisting 
not as objects of reverence at all, as they are at Dominica, 
but as the humble servants and ministers of black society. 
We English are in bad favour just now ; no wonder, with the 
guns of the ' Canada ' pointed at the city ; but the chief com- 
plaint is on account of Sir Spencer St. John's book, which 
they cry out against with a degree of anger which is the sur- 
est evidence of its truth. It would be unfair even to hint at 
the names or stations of various persons who gave me infor- 
mation about the condition of the place and people. Enough 
that those who knew well what they were speaking about as- 
sured me that Hayti was the most ridiculous caricature of 
civilisation in the whole world. Doubtless the whites there 



344 The English in the West Indies. 

are not disinterested witnesses ; for they are treated as they 
once treated the blacks. They can own no freehold property, 
and exist ouly on tolerance. They are called ' white trash.' 
Black dukes and marquises drive over them in the street and 
swear at them, and they consider it an invasion of the natu- 
ral order of thiugs. If this was the worst, or even if the dirt 
and the disease was the worst, it might be borne with, for the 
whites might go away if they pleased, and they pay the pen- 
alty themselves for choosing to be there. But this is not the 
worst. Immorality is so universal that it almost ceases to be 
a fault, for a fault implies an exception, and in Havti it is the 
rule. Young people make experiment of one another before 
they will enter into any closer connection. So far they are 
no worse than in our own English islands, where the custom 
is equally general ; but behind the immorality, behind the 
religiosity, there lies active and alive the horrible revival of 
the West African superstitions ; the serpent worship, and 
the child sacrifice, and the cannibalism. There is no room to 
doubt it, A missionary assured me that an instance of it oc- 
curred only a year ago within his own personal knowledge. 
The facts are notorious ; a full account was published in one 
of the local newspapers, and the only result was that the 
president imprisoned the editor for exposing his country. A 
few years ago persons guilty of these infamies were tried and 
punished ; now they are left alone, because to prosecute and 
convict them would be to acknowledge the truth of the in- 
dictment. 

In this, as in all other communities, there is a better side 
as well as a worse. The better part is ashamed of the condi- 
tion into which the country has fallen ; rational and well-dis- 
posed Haytians would welcome back the French but for an 
impression, whether well founded or ill I know not, that the 
Americans would not suffer any European nation to reacquire 
or recover any new territory on their side of the Atlantic. 



The Blacks in Ilayii. 345 

They make the most they can of their French connection. 
They send their children to Paris to be educated, and many 
of them go thither themselves. There is money among them, 
though industry there is none. The Hayti coffee which bears 
so high a reputation is simply gathered under the bushes 
which the French planters left behind them, and is not half as 
excellent as it ought to be because it is so carelessly cleaned, 
yet so rich is the island in these and its natural productions 
that they cannot entirely ruin it. They have a revenue from 
their customs of 5,000,000 dollars to be the prey of political 
schemers. They have a constitution, of course, with a legis- 
lature — two houses of a legislature — universal suffrage, &c, 
but it does not save them from revolutions, which recurred 
every two or three years till the time of the present president. 
He being of stronger metal than the rest, takes care that the 
votes are given as he pleases, shoots down recusants, and 
knows how to make himself feared. He is a giant, they say 
— I did not see him — six feet some inches in height and broad 
in proportion. When in Jamaica he was a friend of Gordon, 
and the intimacy between them is worth noting, as throwing 
light on Gordon's political aspirations. 

I stayed no longer than the ship's business detained the 
captain, and I breathed more freely when I had left that mis- 
erable cross-birth of ferocity and philanthropic sentiment. 
No one can foretell the future fate of the black republic, but 
the present order of things cannot last in an island so close 
under the American shores. If the Americans forbid any 
other power to interfere, they will have to interfere them- 
selves. If they find Mormonism an intolerable blot upon 
their escutcheon, they will have to put a stop in some way 
or other to cannibalism and devil-worship. Meanwhile, the 
ninety years of negro self-government have had their use v.\ 
showing what it really means, and if English statesmen, citlu r 
to save themselves trouble Or to please the prevailing uuin- 



346 The English in the West Indies. 

structed sentiment, insist on extending it, they will be found 
when the accounts are made up to have been no better 
friends to the unlucky negro than their slave-trading fore- 
fathers. 

From the head of the bay on which Port au Prince stands 
there reaches out on the west the long arm or peninsula 
which is so peculiar a feature in the geography of the island. 
The arm bone is a continuous ridge of mountains rising to a 
height of 8,000 feet and stretching for 160 miles. At the 
bach towards the ocean is Jacmel, on the other side is the 
bight of Leogane, over which and along the land our course 
lay after leaving President Salomon's city. The day was un- 
usually hot, and we sat under an awning on deck watching 
the changes in the landscape as ravines opened and closed 
again, and tall peaks changed their shapes . and angles. 
Clouds came down upon the mountain tops and passed off 
again, whole galleries of pictures swept by, and nature never 
made more lovely ones. The peculiarity of tropical mountain 
scenery is that the high summits are clothed with trees. The 
outlines are thus softened and rounded, save where the rock 
is broken into precipices. Along the sea and for several 
miles inland are the Basses Terres as they used to be called, 
level alluvial plains, cut and watered at intervals by rivers, 
once covered with thriving plantations and now a jungle. 
There are no wild beasts there save an occasional man, few 
snakes, and those not dangerous. The acres of richest soil 
which are waiting there till reasonable beings can return and 
cultivate them, must be hundreds of thousands. In the val- 
leys and on the slopes there are all gradations of climate, 
abundant water, grass lands that might be black with cattle, 
or on the loftier ranges white with sheep. 

It is strange to think how chequered a history these islands 
have had, how far they are even yet from any condition which 
promises permanence. Not one of them has an-ived at any 



West Indian History. 347 

stable independence. Spaniards, English and French, Dutch 
aud Danes scrambled for them, fought for them, occupied 
them more or less with their own people, but it was not to 
found new nations, but to get gold or get something which 
could be changed for gold. Only occasionally, and as it were 
by accident, they became the theatre of any grander game. 
The war of the Reformation was carried thither, and heroic 
deeds were done there, but it was by adventurers who were 
in search of plunder for themselves. France and England 
fought among the Antilles, and their names are connected 
with many a gallant action ; but they fought for the sov- 
ereignty of the seas, not for the rights and liberties of the 
French or English inhabitants of the islands. Instead of oc- 
cupying them with free inhabitants, the European nations 
filled them with slave gangs. They were valued only for the 
wealth which they yielded, and society there has never as- 
sumed any particularly noble aspect. There has been splen- 
dour and luxurious living, and there have been crimes and 
horrors, and revolts and massacres. There has been romance, 
but it has been the romance of pirates and outlaws. The 
natural graces of human life do not show themselves under 
such conditions. There has been no saint in the West Indies 
since Las Casas, no hero unless philonegro enthusiasm can 
make one out of Toussaint. There are no people there in the 
true sense of the word, with a character and purpose of their 
own, unless to some extent in Cuba, and therefore when the 
wind has changed and the wealth for which the islands were 
alone valued is no longer to be made among them, and sla- 
very is no longer possible and would not pay if it were, there 
is nothing to fall back upon. The palaces of the English 
planters and merchants fall to decay ; their wines and their 
furniture, their books and their pictures, are sold or dispersed. 
Their existence is a struggle to keep afloat, and one by one 
they go under in the waves. 



348 The English in the West Indies. 

The blacks as long as they were slaves were docile and 
partially civilised. They have behaved on the whole well in 
our islands since their emancipation, for though they were 
personally free the whites were still their rulers, and they 
looked up to them with respect. They have acquired land 
and notions of property, some of them can read, many of 
them are tolerable workmen and some excellent, but in char- 
acter the movement is backwards, not forwards. Even in 
Hayti, after the first outburst of ferocity, a tolerable govern- 
ment-was possible for a generation or two. Orderly habits 
are not immediately lost, but the effect of leaving the negro 
nature to itself is apparent at last. In the English islands 
they are innocently happy in the unconsciousness of the obli- 
gations of morality. They eat, drink, sleep, and smoke, and do 
the least in the way of work that they can. They have no 
ideas of duty, and therefore are not made uneasy by neglect- 
ing it. One or other of them occasionally rises in the legal 
or other profession, but there is no sign, not the slightest, 
that the generality of the race are improving either in intelli- 
gence or moral habits ; all the evidence is the other way. No 
Uncle Tom, no Aunt Chloe need be looked for in a negro's 
cabin in the West Indies. If such specimens of black human- 
ity are to be found anywhere, it will be where they have con- 
tinued under the old influences as servants in white men's 
houses. The generality are mei*e good-natured animals, who 
in service had learnt certain accomplishments, and had de- 
veloped certain qualities of a higher kind. Left to them- 
selves they fall back upon the superstitions and habits of 
their ancestors. The key to the character of any people is to 
be found in the local customs which have spontaneously grown 
or are growing among them. The customs of Dahomey have 
not yet shown themselves in the English West Indies and 
never can while the English authority is maintained, but no 
custom of any kind will be found in a negro hut or village 



Last Impressions. 349 

from which his most sanguine friend can derive a hope that 
he is on the way to mending himself. 

Roses do not grow on thorns, nor figs on thistles. A 
healthy human civilisation was not perhaps to be looked for 
in countries which have been alternately the prey of avarice, 
ambition, and sentimentalism. We visit foreign countries 
to see varieties of life and character, to learn languages that 
we may gain an insight into various literatures, to see man- 
ners unlike our own springing naturally out of different soils 
and climates, to see beautiful works of art, to see places asso- 
ciated with great men and great actions, and subsidiary to 
these, to see lakes and mountains, and strange skies and seas. 
But the localities of great events and the homes of the actors 
in them are only saddening when the spiritual results are dis- 
appointing, and scenery loses its charm unless the grace of 
humanity is in the heart of it. To the man of science the 
West Indies may be delightful and instructive. Rocks and 
trees and flowers remain as they always were, and Nature is 
constant to herself ; but the traveller whose heart is with his 
kind, and cares only to see his brother mortals making their 
corner of this planet into an orderly and rational home, had 
better choose some other object for his pilgrimage. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Return to Jamaica — Cherry Garden again— Black servants — Social con- 
ditions—Sir Henry Norman— King"s House once more — Negro suf- 
frage — The will of the people— The Irish python — Conditions of co- 
lonial union — Oratory and statesmanship. 

I had to return to Jamaica from Cuba to meet the mail to 
England. My second stay could be but brief. For the short 
time that was allowed me I went back to my hospitable 
friends at Cherry Garden, which is an oasis in the wilderness. 
In the heads of the family there was cultivation and simplicity 
and sense. There was a home life with its quiet occupations 
and enjoyments — serious when seriousness was needed, light 
and bright in the ordinary routine of existence. The black 
domestics, far unlike the children of liberty whom I had left 
at Port au Prince, had caught their tone from their master 
and mistress, and were low-voiced, humorous, and pleasant 
to talk with. So perfect were they in their several capacities, 
that, like the girls at Government House at Dominica, I would 
have liked to pack them in my portmanteau and carry them 
home. The black butler received me on my arrival as an old 
friend. He brought me a pair of boots which I had left be- 
hind me on my fh-st visit ; he told me ' the female ' had found 
them. The lady of the house took me out for a drive with 
her. The coachman upset us into a ditch, and we narrowly 
escaped being pitched into a ravine. The dusky creature in- 
sisted pathetically that it was not his fault, nor the horse's 
fault. His ebony wife had left him for a week's visit to a 
friend, and his wits had gone after her. Of course he was 



Cherry Garden Again. 351 

forgiven. Cherry Garden was a genuine homestead, a very 
menagerie of domestic animals of all sorts and breeds. 
Horses loitered under the shade of the mangoes ; cows, 
asses, dogs, turkeys, cocks and hens, geese, guinea fowl and 
pea fowl lounged and strutted about the paddocks. In the 
grey of the morning they held their concerts ; the asses 
brayed, the dogs barked, the turkeys gobbled, and the pea 
fowl screamed. It was enough to waken the seven sleepers, 
but the noises seemed so home-like and natural that they 
mixed pleasantly in one's dreams. One morning, after they 
had been holding a special jubilee, the butler apologised for 
them when he came to call me, and laughed as at the best of 
jokes when I said they did not mean any harm. The great 
feature of the day was five cats, with blue eyes and spotlessly 
white, who walked in regularly at breakfast, ranged them- 
selves on their tails round their mistress's chair, and ate 
their porridge and milk like reasonable creatures. Within 
and without all was orderly. The gardens were in perfect 
condition ; fields were being inclosed and planted ; the work 
of the place went on of itself, with the eye of the mistress on 
it, and her voice, if necessary, heard in command ; but black 
and white were all friends together. What could man ask 
for, more than to live all his days in such a climate and with 
such surroundings ? Why should a realised ideal like this 
pass away ? Why may it not extend itself till it has trans- 
formed the features of all our West Indian possessions ? 
Thousands of English families might be living in similar 
scenes, happy in themselves and spreading round them a 
happy, wholesome English atmosphere. Why not indeed ? 
Only because we are enchanted. Because in Jamaica and 
Barbadoes the white planters had a constitution granted them 
two hundred years ago, therefore their emancipated slaves 
must now have a constitution also. Wonderful logic of for- 
mulas, powerful as a witches' cauldron for mischief as long 



352 The English in the West Indies. 

as it is believed in. The colonies and the Empire ! If the 
colonies were part indeed of the Empire, if they were taken 
into partnership as the Americans take theirs, and were mem- 
bers of an organised body, if an injury to each single limb 
would be felt as an injury to the whole, we should not be 
playing with their vital interests to catch votes at home. 
Alas ! at home we are split in two, and party is more than 
the nation, and famous statesmen, thinly disguising their mo- 
tives under a mask of policy, condemn to-day what they ap- 
proved of yesterday, and catch at power by projects which 
they would be the first to denounce if suggested by their ad- 
versaries. Till this tyranny be overpast, to bring into one 
the scattered portions of the Empire is the idlest of dreams, 
and the most that is to be hoped for is to arrest any active 
mischief. Happy Americans, who have a Supreme Court 
with a code of fundamental laws to control the vagaries of 
politicians and check the passions of fluctuating electoral ma- 
jorities ! What the Supreme Court is to them, the Crown 
ought to be for us ; but the Crown is powerless and must 
remain powerless, and therefore we are as we are, and our 
national existence is made the shuttlecock of party conten- 
tion. 

Time passed so pleasantly with me in these concluding 
days that I could have wished it to be the nothing which 
metaphysicians say that it is, and that when one was happy 
it would leave one alone. We wandered in the shade in the 
mornings, we made expeditions in the evenings, called at 
friends' houses, and listened to the gossip of the island. It 
turned usually on the one absorbing subject — black servants 
and the difficulty of dealing with them. An American lady 
from Pennsylvania declared emphatically as her opinion that 
emancipation had been a piece of folly, and that things would 
never mend till they were slaves again. 

One of my own chief hopes in going originally to Jamaica 



Sir Henry Norman. 353 

had been to see and learn the views of the distinguished 
Governor there. Sir Henry Norman had been one of the 
most eminent of the soldier civilians in India. He had 
brought with him a brilliant reputation ; he had won the 
confidence in the West Indies of all classes and all colours. 
He, if anyone, would understand the problem, and from the 
high vantage ground of experience would know what could 
or could not be done to restore the influence of England and 
the prosperity of the colonies. Unfortunately, Sir Henry had 
been called to London, as I mentioned before, on a question 
of the conduct of some official, and I was afraid that I should 
miss him altogether. He returned, however, the day before 
I was to sail. He was kind enough to ask me to spend an 
evening with him, and I was again on my last night a guest 
at King's House. 

A dinner party offers small opportunity for serious conver- 
sation, nor, indeed, could I expect a great person in Sir 
Henry's position to enter upon subjects of consequence with 
a stranger like myself. I could see, however, that I had noth- 
ing to correct in the impression of his character which his 
reputation had led me to form about him, and I wished more 
than ever that the system of government of which he had 
been so admirable a servant in India could be applied to his 
present position, and that he or such as he could have the 
administration of it. We had common friends in the Indian 
service to talk about ; one especially, Reynell Taylor, now 
dead, who had been the earliest of my boy companions. 
Taylor had been one of the handful of English who held the 
Punjaub in the first revolt of the Sikhs. With a woman's 
modesty he had the spirit of a knight-errant. Sir Henry 
described him as the ' very soul of chivalry,' and seemed him- 
self to be a man of the same pure and noble nature, perhaps 
liable, from the generosity of his temperament, to believe 
more than I could do in modern notions and in modern polit- 
28 



354 The English in the West Indies. 

ical heroes, but certainly not inclining of his own will to rec- 
ommend any rash innovations. I perceived that like myself 
he felt no regret that so much of the soil of Jamaica was pass- 
ing to peasant black proprietors. He thought welt of their 
natural disposition ; he believed them capable of improve- 
ment. He thought that the possession of land of their own 
would bring them into voluntary industry, and lead them 
gradually to the adoption of civilised habits. He spoke with 
reserve, and perhaps I may not have understood him fully, 
but he did not seem to me to think much of their political 
capacity. The local boards which have been established as 
an education for higher functions have not been a success. 
They had been described to me in all parts of the island as 
inflamed centres of peculation and mismanagement. Sir 
Henry said nothing from which I could gather his own opin- 
ion. I inferred, however (he will pardon me if I misrepre- 
sent him), that he had no great belief in a federation of the 
islands, in 'responsible government,' and such like, as within 
the bounds of present possibilities. Nor did he think that 
responsible statesmen at home had any such arrangement in 
view. 

That such an arrangement was in contemplation a few 
years ago, I knew from competent authority. Perhaps the 
unexpected interest which the English people have lately 
shown in the colonies has modified opinion in those high 
circles, and has taught politicians that they must advance 
more cautiously. But the wind still sits in the old quarter. 
Three years ago, the self-suppressed constitution in Jamaica 
was partially re-established. A franchise was conceded both 
there and in Barbadoes which gave every black householder 
a vote. Even in poor Dominica, an extended suffrage was 
hung out as a remedy for its wretchedness. If nothing 
further is intended, these concessions have been gratuitously 
mischievous. It has roused the hopes of political agitators, 



Negro Suffrage. 355 

not in Jamaica only, but all over the Antilles. It has taught 
the people, who have no grievances at all, who in their pres- 
ent state are better protected than any peasantry in the 
world except the Irish, to look to political changes as a road 
to an impossible millennium. It has rekindled hopes which 
had been long extinguished, that, like their brothers in Hayti, 
they were on the way to have the islands to themselves. It has 
alienated the English colonists, filled them with the worst ap- 
prehensions, and taught them to look wistfully from their own 
country to a union Avith America. A few elected members 
in a council where they may be counterbalanced by an equal 
number of official members seems a small thing in itself. So 
long as the equality was maintained, my Yankee friend was 
still willing to risk his capital in Jamaican enterprises. But 
the principle has been allowed. The existing arrangement 
is a half-measure which satisfies none and irritates all, and 
collisions between the representatives of the people and the 
nominees of the Government are only avoided by leaving a 
sufficient number of official seats unfilled. To have re-en- 
tered upon a road where you cannot stand still, where re- 
treat is impossible, and where to go forward can only be rec- 
ommended on the hypothesis that to give a man a vote will 
itself qualify him for the use of it, has been one of the minor 
achievements of the last Government of Mr. Gladstone, an 1 
is likely to be as successful as his larger exploits nearer home 
have as yet proved to be. A supreme court, were we happy 
enough to possess such a thing, would forbid these venturous 
experiments of sanguine statesmen who may happen, for a 
moment, to command a trifling majority in the House of 
Commons. 

I could not say what I felt completely to Sir Henry, who. 
perhaps, had been in personal relations with Mr. Gladstone's 
Government, Perhaps, too, he was one of those numerous 
persons of tried ability and intelligence who have only a faint 



356 The English in the West Indies. 

belief that the connection between Great Britain and the 
colonies can be of long continuance. I inferred that it might 
be so, because when I mentioned the irritation which I had 
observed in Melbourne about the German annexation in New 
Guinea he seemed to think that we might have left the Vic- 
torians and the Germans to fight out the quarrel among them- 
selves. The injury — if it was one — was to the Australians, 
not to us. The Australians might have borne their own re- 
sponsibilities, and we could have been merely spectators. 
That such a view could be entertained and expressed by the 
governor of a considerable colony is an evidence how little 
below the surface the idea of Imperial federation has as yet 
penetrated. The Australians are either British subjects or 
they are not. If they are not, the connection is a shadow, 
and it is as well to have done with illusions. If they are 
British subjects, the nation with whom they quarrel will ac- 
knowledge no fine distinctions, and will fix the responsibility 
where it rightly belongs. To leave a colony to go to war on 
its own account is to leave the peace of the Empire at the 
mercy of any one of its dependencies. So obvious is this, 
that Sir Henry's observation was perhaps no more than gentle 
irony. The public may amuse themselves with the vision of 
an Imperial union ; practical statesmen believe that they know 
it to be impossible. 

As to the West Indies there are but two genuine alterna- 
tives : one to leave them to themselves to shape their own 
destinies, as we leave Australia ; the other to govern them as 
if they were a part of Great Britain Avith the same scrupulous 
care of the people and their interests with which we govern 
Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. England is responsible for 
the social condition of those islands. She filled them with 
negroes when it was her interest to maintain slavery, she 
emancipated those negroes when popular opinion at home 
demanded that slavery should end. It appears to me that 



Alternative Courses. 357 

England ought to bear the consequences of her own actions, 
and assume to herself the responsibilities of a state of things 
which she has herself created. We are partly unwilling to 
take the trouble, partly we cling to the popular belief that to 
trust all countries with the care of their own concerns is the 
way to raise the character of the inhabitants and to make them 
happy and contented. We dimly perceive that the population 
of the West Indies is not a natural growth of internal tenden- 
cies and circumstances, and we therefore hesitate before we 
plunge completely and entirely into the downward course ; 
but we play with it, we drift towards it, we advance as far as 
we dare, giving them the evils of both systems and the ad- 
vantages of neither. At the same moment we extend the 
suffrage to the blacks with one hand, while with the other we 
refuse to our own people the benefit of a treaty which would 
have rescued them from imminent ruin and brought them 
into relations with their powerful kindred close at hand — re- 
lations which might save them from the most dangerous con- 
sequences of a negro political supremacy — and the result is 
that the English in those islands are melting away and will 
soon be crowded out, or will have departed of themselves in 
disgust. A policy so far-reaching, and affecting so seriously 
the condition of the oldest of our colonial possessions, ought 
not to have been adopted on their own authority, by doctri- 
naire statesmen in a cabinet, without fully and frankly consult- 
ing the English nation ; and no further step ought to be 
taken in that direction until the nation has had the circum- 
stances of the islands laid before it, and has pronounced one 
way or the other its own sovereign pleasure. Does or does 
not England desire that her own people shall be enabled to 
live and thrive in the West Indies ? If she decides that her 
hands are too full, that she is over-empired and cannot at- 
tend to them — cadit quceslio — there is no more to be said. 
But if this is her resolution the hands of the West Indians 



358 The English in the West Indies. 

ought to be untied. They ought to be allowed to make their 
sugar treaties, to make any treaties, to enter into the closest 
relations with America which the Americans will accept, as 
the only chance which will be left them. 

Such abandonment, however, will bring us no honour. It 
will not further that federation of the British Empire which 
so many of us now profess to desire. If we wish Australia 
and Canada to draw into closer union with us, it will not be 
by showing that we are unable to manage a group of colonies 
which are almost at our doors. Englishmen all round the 
globe have rejoiced together in this year which is passing by 
us over the greatness of their inheritance, and have celebrated 
with enthusiasm the half-century during which our lady- mis- 
tress has reigned over the Empire. Unity and federation are 
on our lips, and we have our leagues and our institutes, and 
in the eagerness of our wishes we dream that we see the ful- 
filment of them. Neither the kingdom of heaven nor any 
other kingdom 'comes with observation.' It comes not with 
after-dinner speeches however eloquent, or with flowing sen- 
timents however for the moment sincere. The spirit which 
made the Empire can alone hold it together. The American 
Union was not saved by oratory. It was saved by the deter- 
mination of the bravest of the people ; it was cemented by 
the blood which dyed the slopes of Gettysburg. The union 
of the British Empire, if it is to be more than a dream, can 
continue only while the attracting force of the primary com- 
mands the willing attendance of the distant satellites. Let 
the magnet lose its power, let the confidence of the colonies 
in the strength and resolution of their central orb be once 
shaken, and the centrifugal force will sweep them away into 
orbits of their own. 

The race of men who now inhabit this island of ours show 
no signs of degeneracy. The bow of Ulysses is sound as ever ; 
moths and worms have not injured either cord or horn ; but 



Conciliation. 359 

it is unstrung, and the arrows which are shot from it drop 
feebly to the ground. The Irish python rises again out of its 
swamp, and Phoebus Apollo launches no shaft against the 
scaly sides of it. Phoebus Apollo attempts the milder methods 
of concession and persuasion. 'Python,' he says, 'in days 
when I was ignorant and unjust I struck you down and bound 
you. I left officers and men with you of my own race to 
watch you, to teach you, to rule you ; to force you, if your 
own nature could not be changed, to leave your venomous 
ways. You have refused to be taught, you twist in your 
chains, you bite and tear, and when you can you steal and 
murder. I see that I was wrong from the first. Every creat- 
ure has a right to live according to its own disposition. I 
was a tyrant, and you did well to resist ; I ask you to forgive 
and forget. I set you free ; I hand you over my own repre- 
sentatives as a pledge of my goodwill, that you may devour 
them at your leisure. They have been the instruments of 
my oppression ; consume them, destroy them, do what you 
will with them : and henceforward I hope that we shall live 
together as friends, and that you will show yourself worthy 
of my generosity and of the freedom which you have so glo- 
riously won.' 

A sun-god who thus addressed a disobedient satellite 
might have the eloquence of a Demosthenes and the finest of 
the fine intentions which pave the road to the wrong place, 
but he would not be a divinity who would command the will- 
ing confidence of a high-spirited kindred. Great Britain will 
make the tie which holds the colonies to her a real one when 
she shows them and shows the world that she is still equal to 
her great place, that her arm is not shortened and her heart 
has not grown faint. 

Men speak of the sacredness of liberty. They talk as if 
the will of everyone ought to be his only guide, that alle- 
giance is due only to majorities, that allegiance of any other 



360 The English in the West Indies. 

kind is base and a relic of servitude. The Americans are the 
freest people in the world ; but in their freedom they have to 
obey the fundamental laws of the Union. Again and again 
in the West Indies Mr. Motley's words came back to me. To 
be taken into the American Union is to be adopted into a 
partnership. To belong as a Crown colony to the British 
Empire, as things stand, is no partnership at all. It is to be- 
long to a power which sacrifices, as it has always sacrificed, 
the interest of its dependencies to its own. The blood runs 
freely through every vein and artery of the American body 
corporate. Every single citizen feels his share in the life of 
his nation. Great Britain leaves her Crown colonies to take 
care of themselves, refuses what they ask, and forces on them 
what they had rather be without. If I were a West Indian I 
should feel that under the stars and stripes I should be safer 
than I was at present from political experimenting. I 
should have a market in which to sell my produce where I 
should be treated as a friend ; I should have a power behind 
me and protecting me, and I should have a future to which 
I could look forward with confidence. America would re- 
store me to hope and life ; Great Britain allows me to sink, 
contenting herself with advising me to be patient. Why 
should I continue loyal when my loyalty was so contemptu- 
ously valued ? 

But I will not believe that it will come to this. An Eng- 
lishman may be heavily tempted, but in evil fortune as in 
good his heart is in the old place. The administration of 
our affairs is taken for the present from prudent statesmen, 
and is made over to those who know how best to flatter the 
people with fine-sounding sentiments and idle adulation. All 
sovereigns have been undone by flatterers. The people are 
sovereign now, and, being new to power, listen to those who 
feed their vanity. The popular orator has been the ruin of 
every country which has trusted to him. He never speaks 



Oratorical Statesmen. 361 

an unwelcome truth, for his existence depends on pleasing, 
and he cares only to tickle the ears of his audience. His 
element is anarchy ; his function is to undo what better men 
have done. In wind he lives and moves and has his being. 
When the gods are angry, he can raise it to a hurricane and 
lay waste whole nations in ruin and revolution. It was said 
long ago, a man full of words shall not prosper upon the 
earth. Times have changed, for in these days no one pros- 
pers so well. Can he make a speech ? is the first question 
which the constituencies ask when a candidate is offered to 
their suffrages. "When the Roman commonwealth developed 
from an aristocratic republic into a democracy, and, as now 
with its, the sovereignty w r as in the mass of the people, the 
oratorical faculty came to the front in the same way. The 
finest speaker was esteemed the fittest man to be made a 
consul or a prsetor of, and there were schools of rhetoric 
where aspirants for office had to go to learn gesture and in- 
tonation before they could present themselves at the hustings. 
The sovereign people and their orators could do much, but 
they could not alter facts, or make that which was not, to be, 
or that which was, not to be. The orators could perorate 
and the people could decree, but facts remained and facts 
proved the strongest, and the end of that was that after a 
short supremacy the empire which they had brought to the 
edge of ruin was saved at the last extremity ; the sovereign 
people lost their liberties, and the tongues of political orators 
were silenced for centuries. Illusion at last takes the form 
of broken heads, and the most obstinate credulity is not 
proof against that form of argument. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Going home — Retrospect — Alternative courses — Future of the Empire 
— Sovereignty of the sea — The Greeks— The rights of man — Plato — 
The voice of the people — Imperial federation — Hereditary colonial 
policy — New Irelands — Effects of party government. 

Once more upon the sea on our homeward way, carrying, as 
Emerson said, ' the bag of JEolus in the boiler of our boat,' 
careless whether there be wind or calm. Our old naval 
heroes passed and repassed upon the same waters under 
harder conditions. They had to struggle against tempests, to 
fight with enemy's cruisers, to battle for their lives with 
nature as with man — and they were victorious over them all. 
They won for Britannia the sceptre of the sea, and built up 
the Empire on which the sun never sets. To us, their suc- 
cessors, they handed down the splendid inheritance, and we 
in turn have invented steam ships and telegraphs, and thrown 
bridges over the ocean, and made our far-off possessions as 
easy of access as the next parish. The attractive force of the 
primary ought to have increased in the same ratio, but we do 
not find that it has. and the centrifugal and the centripetal 
tendencies of our satellites are year by year becoming more 
nicely balanced. These beautiful West Indian islands were 
intended to be homes for the overflowing numbers of our 
own race, and the few that have gone there are being crowded 
out by the blacks from Jamaica and the Antilles. Our poor 
helots at home drag on their lives in the lanes and alleys of 
our choking cities, and of those who gather heart to break off 
on their own account and seek elsewhere for a land of prom- 



To Be or Not to Be. 363 

ise, the large majority are weary of the flag under which they 
have only known suffering, and prefer America to the English 
colonies. They are waking now to understand the opportuni- 
ties which are slipping through their hands. Has the awak- 
ening come too late ? We have ourselves mixed the cup ; 
must we now drink it to the dregs ? 

It is too late to enable us to make homes in the West In • 
dies for the swarms who are thrown off by our own towns 
and villages. We might have done it. Englishmen would 
have thriven as well in Jamaica and the Antilles as the 
Spaniards have thriven in Cuba. But the islands are now 
peojjled by men of another colour. The whites there are as 
units among hundreds, and the proportion cannot be altered. 
But it is not too late to redeem our own responsibilities. 
We brought the blacks there ; we have as yet not done much 
for their improvement, when their notions of morality are 
still so elementary that more than half of their children 
are born out of marriage. The English planters were en- 
couraged to settle there when it suited our convenience to 
maintain the islands for Imperial purposes ; like the land- 
lords in Ireland, they were our English garrison ; and as 
with the landlords in Ireland, when we imagine that they 
have served their purpose and can be no longer of use to 
us, we calmly change the conditions of society. We disclaim 
obligations to help them in the confusion which we have 
introduced ; we tell them to help themselves, and they can- 
not help themselves in such an element as that in which 
they are now struggling, unless they know that they may 
count on the sympathy and the support of their countrymen 
at home. Nothing is demanded of the English exchequer ; 
the resources of the islands are practically boundless ; there 
is a robust population conscious at the bottom of their nature 
of their own inferiority, and docile and willing to work if 
any one will direct them and set them to it. There will be 



364 The English in the West Indies. 

capital enough forthcoming, and energetic men enough and 
intelligence enough, if we on our part will provide one thing, 
the easiest of all if we really set our minds to it — an effective 
and authoritative government. It is not safe even for our- 
selves to leave a wound unattended to, though it be in the 
least significant part of our bodies. The West Indies are a 
small limb in the great body corporate of the British Em- 
pire, but there is no great and no small in the life of nations. 
The avoidable decay of the smallest member is an injury to 
the whole. Let it be once known and felt that England re- 
gards the West Indies as essentially one with herself, and 
the English in the islands will resume their natural position, 
and respect and order will come back, and those once thriv- 
ing colonies will again advance with the rest on the high 
road of civilisation and prosperity. Let it be known that 
England considers only her immediate interests and will not 
exert herself, and the other colonies will know what they have 
to count upon, and the British Empire will dwindle down be- 
fore long into a single insignificant island in the North Sea. 

So end the reflections which I formed there from what I 
saw and what I heard. I have written as an outside ob- 
server unconnected with practical politics, with no motive 
except a loyal pride in the greatness of my own country, and 
a conviction, which I will not believe to be a dream, that 
the destinies have still in store for her a yet grander future. 
The units of us come and go ; the British Empire, the globe 
itself and all that it inherits, will pass away as a vision. 

ecrfferai rfp-ap orav t:ot 6\u>\r) *lAws ipi), 
Ktx.1 Tlpia/nos Kal \abs iv/jfieAia) Hpuip.010. 

The day will be when Ilium's towers may fall, 
And large-limbed ' Priam, and his people all. 

1 1 believe this to be the true meaning of ivp.pe\lrjs. It is usually 
rendered, 'armed with a stout spear.' 



Going Home. 365 

But that day cannot be yet. Out of the now half-organic 
fragments will yet be formed one living Imperial power, with 
a new era of beneficence and usefulness to mankind. The 
English people are spread far and wide. The sea is their 
dominion, and their land is the finest portion of the globe. 
It is theirs now, it will be theirs for ages to come if they re- 
main themselves unchanged and keep the heart and temper 
of their forefathers. 

Naught shall make us rue, 
If England to herself do rest but true. 

The days pass, and our ship flies fast upon her way. 

yXavicbv vitep oldjj.a Kvavoxpod re KVfiarwv 
p6dia iroAia daXafftras. 

How perfect the description ! How exactly in those eight 
words Euripides draws the picture of the ocean ; the long 
grey heaving swell, the darker steel-grey on the shadowed 
slope of the surface waves, and the foam on their breaking 
crests. Our thoughts flow back as we gaze to the times long 
ago, when the earth belonged to other races as it now belongs 
to us. The ocean is the same as it was. Their eyes saw it 
as we see it : 

Time writes no wrinkle on that azure brow. 

Nor is the ocean alone the same. Human nature is still 
vexed with the same problems, mocked with the same hopes, 
wandering after the same illusions. The sea affected the 
Greeks as it affects us, and was equally dear to them. It was 
a Greek who said, ' The sea washes off all the ills of men ; ' 
the ' stainless one ' as iEschylus called it — the eternally pure. 
On long voyages I take Greeks as my best companions. I 
had Plato with me on my way home from the West Indie?. 
He lived and wrote in an age like ours, when religion had 



3G6 The English in the West Indies. 

become a debatable subject on which everyone had his opin- 
ion, and democracy was master of the civilised world, and the 
Mediterranean states were running wild after liberty, pre- 
paratory to the bursting of the bubble. Looking out on such 
a world Plato left thoughts behind him the very language of 
which is as full of application to our own larger world as if 
it was written yesterday. It throws light on small things 
as well as large, and interprets alike the condition of the isl- 
ands which I had left, the condition of England, the condition 
of all civilised countries in this modern epoch. 

The chief characteristic of this age, as it was the chief 
characteristic of Plato's, is the struggle for what we call the 
'rights of man.' In other times the thing insisted on was 
that men should do what was ' right ' as something due to a 
higher authority. Now the demand is for what is called their 
'rights' as something due to themselves, and among these 
rights is a right to liberty ; liberty meaning the utmost pos- 
sible freedom of every man consistent with the freedom of 
others, and the abolition of every kind of authority of one 
man over another. It is with this view that we have intro- 
duced popular suffrage, that we give every one a vote, or aim 
at giving it, as the highest political perfection. 

We turn to Plato and we find : ' In a healthy community 
there ought to be some authority over every single man and 
woman. No person — not one — ought to act on his or her 
judgment alone even in the smallest trifle. The soldier on a 
campaign obeys his commander in little things as well as 
great. The safety of the army requires it. But it is in peace 
as it is in war, and there is no difference. Every person 
should be trained from childhood to rule and to be ruled. 
So only can the life of man, and the life of all creatures de- 
pendent on him, be delivered from anarchy.' 

It is worth while to observe how diametrically opposite to 
our notions on this subject were the notions of a man of the 



The Voice of the Peojtle. 367 

finest intellect, with the fullest opportunities of observation, 
and every one of whose estimates of things was confirmed by 
the event. Such a discipline as he recommends never existed 
in any community of men except perhaps among the religious 
orders in the enthusiasm of their first institution, nor would 
a society be long tolerable in which it was tried. Communi- 
ties, however, have existed where people have thought more 
of their obligations than of their ' rights,' more of the welfare 
of their country, or of the success of a cause to which they 
have devoted themselves, than of their personal pleasure or 
interest — have preferred the wise leading of superior men to 
their own wills or wishes. Nay, perhaps no community has 
ever continued long, or has made a mark in the world of seri- 
ous significance, where society has not been graduated in de- 
grees, and there have not been deeper and stronger bands of 
coherence than the fluctuating votes of majorities. 

Times are changed we are told. We live in a new era, 
when public opinion is king, and no other rule is possible ; 
public opinion, as expressed in the press and on the platform, 
and by the deliberately chosen representatives of the people. 
Every question can be discussed and argued, all sides of it 
can be heard, and the nation makes up its mind. The col- 
lective judgment of all is wiser than the wisest single man — 
securus judical orbis. 

Give the public time, and I believe this to be true ; gener- 
al opinion does in the long run form a right estimate of most 
persons and of most things. As surely its immediate im- 
pulses are almost invariably in directions which it afterwards 
regrets and repudiates, and therefore constitutions which 
have no surer basis than the popular judgment, as it shifts 
from year to year or parliament to parliament, are built on 
foundations looser than sand. 

In concluding this book T have a few more words to say on 
the subject, so ardently canvassed, of Imperial federation. It 



368 The English in the West Indies. 

seems so easy. You have only to form a new parliament in 
which the colonies shall be represented according to numbers, 
while each colony will retain its own for its own local pur- 
poses. Local administration is demanded everywhere ; Eng- 
land, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, can each have theirs, and the 
vexed question of Home Kule can be disposed of in the re- 
construction of the whole. A central parliament can then be 
formed in which the parts can all be represented in propor- 
tion to their number ; and a cabinet can be selected out of 
this for the management of Imperial concerns. Nothing more 
is necessary ; the thing will be done. 

So in a hundred forms, but all on the same principle, 
schemes of Imperial union have fallen under my eye. I 
should myself judge from experience of what democratically 
elected parliaments are growing into, that at the first session 
of such a body the satellites would fly off into space, shat- 
tered perhaps themselves in the process. "We have parlia- 
ments enough already, and if no better device can be found 
than by adding another to the number, the rash spirit of in- 
novation has not yet gone far enough to fling our ancient con- 
stitution into the crucible on so wild a chance. 

Imperial federation, as it is called, is far away, if ever it is 
to be realised at all. If it is to come it will come of itself, 
brought about by circumstances and silent impulses working 
continuously through many years unseen and unspoken of. It 
is conceivable that Great Britain and her scattered offspring, 
under the pressure of danger from without, or impelled by 
some general purpose, might agree to place themselves for a 
time under a single administrative head. It is conceivable 
that out of a combination so formed, if it led to a successful 
immediate result, some union of a closer kind might event- 
ually emerge. It is not only conceivable, but it is entirely 
certain, that attempts made when no such occasion has arisen, 
by politicians ambitious of distinguishing themselves, will 



Imperial Federation. SG9 

fail, and in failing will make the object that is aimed at more 
confessedly unattainable than it is now. 

The present relation between the mother country and her 
self-governed colonies is partly that of parent and children 
who have grown to maturity and are taking care of them- 
selves, partly of independent nations in friendly alliance, 
partly as common subjects of the same sovereign, whose au- 
thority is exercised in each by ministers of its own. Neither 
of these analogies is exact, for the position alters from year to 
year. So much the better. The relation which now exists 
cannot be more than provisional ; let us not try to shape it 
artificially, after a closet-made pattern. The threads of in- 
terest and kindred must be left to spin themselves in their 
own way. Meanwhile we can work together heartily and with 
good will where we need each other's co-operation. Diffi- 
culties will rise, perhaps, frorn time to time, but we can meet 
them as they come, and we need not anticipate them. If we 
are to be politically one, the organic fibres which connect us 
are as yet too immature to bear a strain. All that we can do, 
and all that at present we ought to try, is to act generously 
whenever our assistance can be of use. The disposition of 
English statesmen to draw closer to the colonies is of recent 
growth. They cannot tell, and we cannot tell, how far it in- 
dicates a real change of attitude or is merely a passing mood. 
One thing, however, we ought to bear in mind, that the colo- 
nies sympathise one with another, and that wrong or neglect 
in any part of the Empire does not escape notice. The 
larger colonies desire to know what the recent professions of 
interest are worth, and they look keenly at our treatment of 
their younger brothers who are still in our power. They are 
practical, they attend to results, they guard jealously their 
own privileges, but they are not so enamoured of constitu- 
tional theory that they will patiently see their fellow-country- 
men in less favoured situations swamped under the votes of 
24 



370 The English in the West Indies. 

the coloured races. Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, 
will not be found enthusiastic for the extension of self-govern- 
ment in the West Indies, when they know that it means the 
extinction of their own white brothers who have settled there. 
The placing English colonists at the mercy of coloured ma- 
jorities they will resent as an injury to themselves ; they will 
not look upon it as an extension of a generous principle, but 
as an act of airy virtue which costs us nothing, and at the 
bottom is but carelessness and indifference. 

We imagine that we have seen the errors of our old co- 
lonial policy,, and that we are in no danger of repeating them. 
Yet in the W'est Indies we are treading over again the too 
familiar road. The Anglo-Irish colonists in 1705 petitioned 
for a union with Great Britain. A union would have involved 
a share in British trade ; it was refused therefore, and we 
gave them the penal laws instead. They set up manufact- 
ures, built ships, and tried to raise a commerce of their own. 
We laid them under disabilities which ruined their enter- 
prises, and when they were resentful and became trouble- 
some we turned round to the native Irish and made a virtue 
of protecting them against our own people whom we had in- 
jured. When the penal laws ceased to be useful to us, we 
did not allow them to be executed. We played off Catholic 
against Protestant while we were sacrificing both to our own 
jealousy. Having made the government of the island impos- 
sible for those whom we had planted there to govern it, we 
emancipate the governed, and to conciliate them we allow 
them to appropriate the possessions of their late masters. 
And we have not conciliated the native Irish ; it was impos- 
sible that we should ; we have simply armed them with the 
only weapons which enable them to revenge their wrongs 
uj)on us. 

The history of the West Indies is a precise parallel. The 
islands were necessary to our safety in our struggle with 



JVew I r elands. 371 

France and Spain. The colonists held them chiefly for us as 
a garrison, and we in turn gave the colonists their slaves. 
The white settlers ruled as in Ireland, the slaves obeyed, and 
all went swimmingly. Times changed at home. Slavery 
became unpopular ; it was abolished ; and, with a generosity 
for which we never ceased to applaud ourselves, we voted an 
indemnity of twenty millions to the owners. We imagined 
that we had acquitted our consciences, but such debts are not 
to be got rid of by payments of money. We had introduced 
the slaves into the islands for our own advantage ; in setting 
them free we revolutionised society. We remained still re- 
sponsible for the social consequences, and we did not choose 
to remember it. The planters were guilty only, like the 
Irish landlords, of having ceased to be necessary to us. We 
practised our virtues vicariously at their expense ; we had the 
praise and honour, they had the suffering. They begged that 
the emancipation might be gradual ; our impatience to clear 
our reputation refused to wait. Their system of cultivation 
being deranged, they petitioned for protection against the 
competition of countries where slavery continued. The re- 
quest was natural, but could not be listened to because to 
grant it might raise infmitesircally the cost of the British 
workman's breakfast. They struggled on, and even when a 
new rival rose in the beetroot sugar they refused to be 
beaten. The European powers, to save their beetroot, went 
on to support it with a bounty. Against the purse of foreign 
governments the sturdiest individuals cannot compete. De- 
feated in a fight which had become unfair, the planters 
looked, and looked in vain, to their own government for help. 
Finding none, they turned to their kindred in the United 
States ; there, at last, they found a hand held out to them. 
The Americans were willing, though at a loss of two millions 
and a half of revenue, to admit the poor West Indians to 
their own market. But a commercial treaty was necessary ; 



372 The English in the West Indies. 

and a treaty could not be made without the sanction of the 
English Government. The English Government, on some 
fine-drawn crotchet, refused to colonies which were weak and 
helpless what they would have granted without a word if de- 
manded by Victoria or New South Wales, whose resentment 
they feared. And when the West Indians, harassed, des- 
perate, and half ruined, cried out against the enormous in- 
justice, in the fear that their indignation might affect their 
allegiance and lead them to seek admission into the American 
Union, we extend the franchise among the blacks, on whose 
hostility to such a measure we know that we can rely. 

There is no occasion to suspect responsible English poli- 
ticians of any sinister purpose in what they have done or not 
done, or suspect them, indeed, of any purpose at all. They 
act from day to day under the pressure of each exigency as 
it rises, and they choose the course which is least directly in- 
convenient. But the result is to have created in the Antilles 
and Jamaica so many fresh Irelands, and I believe that Brit- 
ish colonists the world over will feel together in these ques- 
tions. They will not approve ; rather they will combine to 
condemn the betrayal of their own fellow-countrymen. If 
England desires her colonies to rally round her, she must de- 
serve their affection and deserve their respect. She will find 
neither one nor the other if she carelessly sacrifices her own 
people in any part of the world to fear or convenience. The 
magnetism which will bind them to her must be found in 
herself or nowhere. 

Perhaps nowhere ! Perhaps if we look to the real origin 
of all that has gone wrong with us, of the policy which has 
flung Ireland back into anarchy, which has weakened our in- 
fluence abroad, which has ruined the oldest of our colonies, 
and has made the continuance under our flag of the great 
communities of our countrymen who are forming new nations 
in the Pacific a question of doubt and uncertainty, we shall 



Effects of Party. 373 

find it in our own distractions, in the form of government 
which is fast developing into a civil war under the semblance 
of peace, where party is more than country, and a victory at 
the hustings over a candidate of opposite principles more 
glorious than a victory in the field over a foreign foe. Soci- 
ety in republican Rome was so much interested in the faction 
fights of Clodius and Milo that it could hear with apathy of 
the destruction of Crassus and a Roman army. The senate 
would have sold Csesar to the Celtic chiefs in Gaul, and the 
modern English enthusiast would disintegrate the British 
Islands to purchase the Irish vote. Till we can rise into 
some nobler sphere of thought and conduct we may lay aside 
the vision of a confederated empire. 

Oh, England, model to thy inward greatness, 
Like little body with a mighty heart, 
What might'st thou do that honour would thee do 
Were all thy children kind and natural ! 



1959 



